RODGER    LATIMER'S   MISTAKE


303


Usually  when  any  of  Mrs. Latimer's  lady  friends
came  in,  unaccompanied  by  their  husbands,  Mr. Lat-
imer  withdrew  to  his  own  room,  and  passed  the  time
with  his  books,  and  such  hours  were  most  enjoyed  by
him  of  any  that  the  winter  brought  him. But  to-night
he  purposely  staid  in  the  library,  taking  up  a  mag-
azine to  read,  so  as  not  to  be  a  check  on  the  conver-
sation of  the  ladies. For  the  past  few  days,  he  had
been  thinking  much  of  the  unfortunate  state  of  affairs
between  Mrs. Latimer  and  himself,  and  of  how  little,
after  all,  he  really  knew  of  her  most  intimate  society
friends. He  had  been  thinking  of  Marie's  comparative
youth,  her  great  desire  for  praise  and  adulation,  which
was  fed  and  inflamed  by  the  flattery  forced  upon  her
from  all  sides,  of  what  seemed  to  him,  her  insane  love
of  dress,  and  inordinate  fondness  of  gentlemen's  atten-
tions. He  questioned  whether  he  had  acted  wisely  in
giving  her  an  unrestricted  bank  account  of  her  own,  and
blamed  himself,  that  he  had  not  insisted  on  accom-
panying her  to  every  one  of  the  Histrionic  rehearsals;
and  he  remembered,  as  he  went  over  it  as  accurately
as  he  could,  that  not  more  than  one-half  of  the  time
had  he  been  with  her  to  these  rehearsals. The  result
of  these  reflections  had  been,  that  he  had  made  up  his
mind  to  identify  himself  more  closely  than  ever,  with
his  wife's  society  life,  especially  the  informal  part  of
it,  of  which  he  had  reallyi known  but  little. And  another
thing  that  he  determined  to  do,  was  to  break  up  the
intimacy  between  Marie  and  Mrs. Therbert,  whom  he  had
come  to  regard  as  a  woman  of  little  principle,  a  thor-
oughly scheming,  selfish  one,  who  had  no  honest  affection
for  his  wife,  whom  she  was  constantly  flattering  and
petting,  for  purposes  of  her  own. In  keeping  with  these
determinations,  he  remained  in  the  library,  instead  of


304  RODGER  LATIMER'S  MISTAKE

going,  as  usual,  to  his  own  room;  a  proceeding  which
evidently  discomfited  both  ladies,  and  which  he  plainly
saw  was  making  Marie  angry. In  fact,  Mrs. Latimer
wondered  at  his  behavior  in  staying,  and  was  revolv-
ing in  her  own  mind,  whether  or  not,  it  would  do  to
take  Mrs. Therbert  to  some  other  room. 