nearer the
proofs the happier he in withdrawing from his charge and effecting a
reconciliation. Short of guilt, of course. Men are so strange. Imagine
now, if a handsome young woman were known to be admired rather more than
enough by a good-looking gentleman near about her own age. Oh, I've no
patience with, the man for causing us to think and scheme! Only there are
men who won't be set right unless we do. My husband used to say, change
is such a capital thing in life's jogtrot; that men find it refreshing if
we now and then, reverse the order of our pillion-riding for them. A
spiritless woman in a wife is what they bear least of all. Anything
rather. Is Mr. Morsfield haunting Mrs. Lawrence Finchley's house as
usual?"

Aminta's cheeks unrolled their deep damask rose at the abrupt intrusion
of the name. "I meet him there."

"Lord Adderwood, Sir John Randeller; and the rest?"

"Two or three times a week."

"And the lady, wife of the captain, really a Lady Fair--Mrs.... month of
May: so I have to get at it."

"She may be seen there."

"Really a contrast, when you two are together! As to reputation, there is
an exchange of colours. Those lawyers hold the keys of the great world,
and a naughty world it is, I fear--with exceptions, who are the salt, but
don't taste so much. I can't help enjoying the people at Mrs. Lawrence
Finchley's. I like to feel I can amuse them, as they do me. One puzzles
for what they say--in somebody's absence, I mean. They must take Lord
Ormont for a perfect sphinx; unless they are so silly as to think they
may despise him, or suppose him indifferent. Oh, that upper class! It's a
garden, and we can't help pushing to enter it; and fair flowers, indeed,
but serpents too, like the tropics. It tries us more than anything else
in the world--well, just as good eating tries the constitution. He ought
to know it and feel it, and give his wife all the protection of his name,
instead of--not that he denies: I have brought him to that point; he
cannot deny it with me. But not to present her--to shun the Court; not to
introduce her to his family, to appear ashamed of her! My darling Aminta,
a month of absence for reflection on your legally-wedded husband's
conduct increases my astonishment. For usually men old enough to be the
grandfathers of their wives--"

"Oh, pray, aunty, pray, pray!" Aminta cried, and her body writhed. "No
more to-night. You mean well, I am sure. Let us wait. I shall sleep,
perhaps