for me and was sorry when she thought that I
was dead. Really, Honoria, sometimes I wonder if you have any heart at
all. Why should you be put out because Effie got up early to come and
see me?--an example which I must admit you did not set her. And as to
her shoe----" he added smiling.

"You may laugh about her shoe, Geoffrey," she interrupted, "but you
forget that even little things like that are no laughing matter now to
us. The child's shoes keep me awake at night sometimes. Defoy has
not been paid for I don't know how long. I have a mind to get her
_sabots_--and as to heart----"

"Well," broke in Geoffrey, reflecting that bad as was the emotional side
of the question, it was better than the commercial--"as to 'heart?'"

"You are scarcely the person to talk of it, that is all. I wonder how
much of yours you gave _me_?"

"Really, Honoria," he answered, not without eagerness, and his mind
filled with wonder. Was it possible that his wife had experienced some
kind of "call," and was about to concern herself with his heart one
way or the other? If so it was strange, for she had never shown the
slightest interest in it before.

"Yes," she went on rapidly and with gathering vehemence, "you speak
about your heart"--which he had not done--"and yet you know as well as I
do that if I had been a girl of no position you would never have offered
me the organ on which you pretend to set so high a value. Or did your
heart run wildly away with you, and drag us into love and a cottage--a
flat, I mean? If so, _I_ should prefer a little less heart and a little
more common sense."

Geoffrey winced, twice indeed, feeling that her ladyship had hit him as
it were with both barrels. For, as a matter of fact, he had not begun
with any passionate devotion, and again Lady Honoria and he were now
just as poor as though they had really married for love.

"It is hardly fair to go back on bygones and talk like this," he said,
"even if your position had something to do with it; only at first of
course, you must remember that when we married mine was not without
attractions. Two thousand a year to start on and a baronetcy and eight
thousand a year in the near future were not--but I hate talking about
that kind of thing. Why do you force me to it? Nobody could know that my
uncle, who was so anxious that I should marry you, would marry himself
at his age, and have a son and heir. It was not my fault, Honoria.
Perhaps you would not have marrie