that sort of thing. Fancy what it's been like
when all they've had to debate over--poor dears!--was Vaccination and
Calf-lymph and the Benefices Bill!"

Oh, how strange it seemed to Sophy, thus to be sitting and listening to
Olive's political "patter"! Before she knew it, a whole world of thought
had risen about her, as at the rubbing of a magic lamp. Olive rose at
last, saying:

"It's really _too_ bad of your Pwince Charming not to come in while I'm
here. But I'll see him at dinner to-morrow. I'm so glad, my Sweet, that
you're happy at last!"

She embraced Sophy twice, kissed her impulsively, and was gone.

"_Happy at last!_"

Sophy stood where Olive had left her--moving her slim shoe slightly from
side to side. She gazed at the hotel carpet which was strewn with little
grey roses. She counted those that lay near her feet. First from left to
right, then from right to left. As long as she counted carefully, she
could not think clearly. She did not want to think clearly. She felt as
though buried alive under a glittering wreck. It was the palace of her
own life that had crumbled about her. She was cramped in a tiny space.
Air came to her through chinks in the shattered fabric. Food was passed
to her through these interstices. But she must crouch very still in one
position till she died....

XXII

The first part of her stay in England was more endurable, however, than
she had thought possible. Loring was rather subdued by the "highbrows,"
though he carried it off in private to her with an air of indulgent
toleration for the "fool ceremoniousness" of an "effete" civilisation.
The greater number of her friends and acquaintances he characterised as
"lemons." He said there was not a "shred of snap or go in the whole
bunch of them," that they made him long to "yowl" and fire off pistols
in Piccadilly. One exception he made, however, in favour of the Premier.
"Fine old boy," he said. "Can't exactly call _him_ a lemon ... but he
leans that way. I guess I'll have to class him as a citron--a rarer
product of the lemon variety, you know."

It is not only the husband who feels a sense of responsibility in
marriage. This feeling of being responsible for Loring as the man whom
she had chosen for her mate out of all the world, after such a dire
first marriage, kept Sophy taut with apprehension. Every time that they
went out together she was in nervous dread lest he should "bust loose,"
as he sometimes threatened, and