id it, too, before
other people, so that I couldn't very well answer as I wished. You are
aware, by the bye, that he is doing very well--belongs to a firm of
manufacturers of explosives?"

"Indeed?--I wish he would explode his own head off."

The Doctor spoke with most unwonted fierceness. Arnold Jacks, without
verbally seconding the wish, showed by an uneasy smile that he would
not have mourned the decease of this relative of the Derwents. Mrs.
Hannaford's position involved no serious scandal, but Arnold had a
strong dislike for any sort of social irregularity; here was the one
detail of his future wife's family circumstances which he desired to
forget. What made it more annoying than it need have been was his
surmise that Lee Hannaford nursed rancour against the Derwents, and
would not lose an opportunity of venting it. In the public
congratulation of which Arnold spoke, there had been a distinct touch
of malice. It was not impossible that the man hinted calumnies with
regard to his wife, and, under the circumstances, slander of that kind
was the most difficult thing to deal with.

But in Irene's society these unwelcome thoughts were soon dismissed.
With the demeanour of his betrothed, Arnold was abundantly satisfied;
he saw in it the perfect medium between demonstrativeness and
insensibility. Without ever having reflected on the subject, he felt
that this was how a girl of entire refinement should behave in a
situation demanding supreme delicacy. Irene never seemed in "a
coming-on disposition," to use the phrase of a young person who had not
the advantage of English social training; it was evidently her wish to
behave, as far as possible, with the simplicity of mere friendship. In
these days, Mr. Jacks, for the first time, ceased to question himself
as to the prudence of the step he had taken. Hitherto he had been often
reminded that, socially speaking, he might have made a better marriage;
he had felt that Irene conquered somewhat against his will, and that he
wooed her without quite meaning to do so. On the cliffs and the sands
at Cromer, these indecisions vanished. The girl had never looked to
such advantage; he had never been so often apprised of the general
admiration she excited. Beyond doubt, she would do him credit--in
Arnold's view the first qualification in a wife. She was really very
intelligent, could hold her own in any company, and with experience
might become a positively brilliant woman.

For car