Like the poor savage of the south, who
alternately rails at, and grovels before, his
tawdry Madonna.

Georgina Frost was a magnificently
beautiful woman. Her face and figure
were noble and majestic. She was graceful,
eloquent, dignified.

"Mrs. Frost looks every inch a duchess,"
some one said, admiringly. But Mrs. Frost
had once stood for ten minutes side by side
with a real duchess at a picture show, and
after that she told her husband, with a
superb, languid smile, that she should
decline to be likened to a duchess any
more.

"A little, skinny, painted, flaxen-haired
creature in a short gown, and with the
most atrocious bonnet that ever was perched
on a human head," said Mrs. Frost,
disdainfully. " I am not at all like a duchess,
if she is a fair specimen of the genus!"

But nevertheless Mrs. Frost was pleased
to be likened to a duchess.

Mr. Frost did not reach his home until a
few minutes before seven. Seven o'clock
was his dinner hour.

"Dinner ready?" he asked of the man
who opened the door to him.

"Whenever you please, sir. Shall I tell
the cook to send it up at once?"

"Where is your mistress?"

"My mistress is dressing, sir. She had
an early dinner at three o'clock."

Mr. Frost walked into the dining-room,
bidding the man send up his dinner directly.
He threw himself into a chair, and sat still
with a gloomy face. The complex lines in
his forehead were twisted and knotted
tightly together.

He had got half way through his solitary
repast, eating little, but drinking a good
deal, in a feverish way, when the door
opened, and his wife came into the room.

She was in full evening costume. A
rich silk dress, of the brownish-golden hue
of ripe wheat, enhanced the clear paleness
of her skin. The dress was simple and
ample, as became the majestic figure of its
wearer. Its only ornament was a trimming
of white lace round the sleeves and bosom;
but this lace was antique, and of the costliest.
In her dark wavy hair she had placed a
branch of crimson pomegranate flowers,
and on one marble-white arm she wore a
broad thick band of gold with a magnificent
opal set in the midst of it.

"Ah, you are there, Sidney!" she said,
not looking at him though, but walking
straight towards a large mirror over the
mantelpiece. She stood there, with her
back to her husband, contemplating her
own image very calmly.

He raised his eyes and stealthily looked
at her in the glass.

"Where are you going?" he asked,
surlily. "You told me nothing about
going out this evening."

"Oh yes, I did; but I might as well
have omitted it. You never remember. I
am going to the opera. Patti sings the
Sonnambula, and the Maxwells made me
promise not to fail them."

Mr. Frost sat looking at his beautiful
wife with a strange expression of mingled
discontent and admiration.

Suddenly his face changed. "Turn
round," he said, sharply. She obeyed
leisurely.

"Let me look. Is it possible? Yes;
you have—you have—taken that bracelet,
despite all I said to you!"

"I told you when the man showed it to
me that I must have it. It is the finest
single opal I ever saw."

Mr. Frost dashed his hand down on the
table with an oath. "By Heaven it is too
bad!" he cried. "It is incredible! Georgina,
I wonder, upon my soul I do, that you
can have the heart to go on in this way!"

Mrs. Frost looked down at him with a
slow Juno-like turn of the throat.

"Don't be silly, Sidney. What is the
use of your getting into passions?
Nothing would go, either with this dress or
my black velvet, but opals. And this
matches the earrings so well."

"And how, pray, do you imagine I am
to pay for this jewel?"

Mrs. Frost shrugged her shoulders.

"How should I know? How you are
to pay for it, is your business, not mine!
When you married me, I suppose you
were aware of the responsibilities you were
undertaking! Oh, is the carriage there?
Tell him to drive first to Lady Maxwell's,
Edward. And—ask my maid for the
ermine cloak to put into the carriage in case I
should want it coming home."

He walked angrily up and down the
room after she was gone; breaking out now
and again into half-uttered sentences and
ejaculations.

"I will not stand it: I will not. Heavens
and earth! To think of her coolly taking
that opal whose fellow it would be difficult
to find in London, as though it were a glass
bead! She cares no more for me, than for
the stone pavement she sets her dainty foot
on! I am a money-machine. That's all!
But it shall come to an end. I cannot live so.