his wife's room, he came and stood before the sofa.
Half reclining again, Rose turned it over, raising her eyes to him. "Do you really mean something ridiculous?"
"Under the circumstances—grotesque."
"Well," Rose suggested, smiling, "she wants you to allow her to name her successor."
"Just the contrary!" Tony seated himself where Dennis Vidal had sat. "She wants me to promise her she shall have no successor."
His companion looked at him hard; with her surprise at something in his tone she had just visibly coloured. "I see." She was at a momentary loss. "Do you call that grotesque?"
Tony, for an instant, was evidently struck by her surprise; then seeing the reason of it and blushing too a little, "Not the idea, my dear Rose—God forbid!" he exclaimed. "What I'm speaking of is the mistake of giving that amount of colour to her insistence—meeting her as if one accepted the situation as she represents it and were really taking leave of her."
Rose appeared to understand and even to be
