" Strong^" asseverated MoUie. " But she was wrong
to die."

'^ Weak," persisted Peace ; ** weak as water. * Malgr6
moi, je regrette ^ peine aupr6s de toi mon doux pays; et
mon palais au souveraigne ; et mes dieux dans mon coeur
trains.' Isn't that fairly contemptible folly? And all
for the most callous-hearted, egotistical wretch ever put
into an opera."

The self -constituted umpire writhed under her some-
what personal glance. " I pity him," he remarked
sweetly. " Between two women he must have been be-
side his wits."

" No doubt of that," cried Peace, twisting the meaning.
" She was strong," said MoUie. " She knew how to
suffer. Love is capacity for bearing sorrow for our
friend. Her pain was nearly infinite ; therefore she
could not have been weak."

" I think so," agreed Francis Haythome. " It is
true I can't understand such love, but I believe every
true wife feels it."

" And husband too," put in Peace.
He was silent.
" You disagree ? " Mollie lifted her eyes thoughtfully
to his face.
He laughed behind his beard, with the quiet self-reser-
vation men cultivate in conversing with women and their
other inferiors. " You remember Hood's dictum," was
his suggestion, after tantalizing them with silence.
" Go on," quoth Peace. *' Let him say his little verse,
Mollie."

He bestowed a glance of oddly mixed annoyance and
admiration on the unquenchable, and repeated :



128 SHIFTLESS fol;bb,

" Our love it ne'er was reckoned,
Yet good it is, and true ;
It's half the world to me, sweet, *
It's all the world to you."

Peace grew angry under the cool gaze he fixed on her.
