hen once that's done, we shall think less
about all this troublesome affair." He sat silent for a few minutes,
while Neeld finished his wine. "I'm going to have some cheese. Don't you
wait, Mr Neeld."

Old Neeld was glad to escape; he could not understand his host's mood
and was uneasy in talk with him. Moreover it seemed that the great
question was being decided in the garden and not in the dining-room. To
the garden then he betook himself.

Harry smoked a cigarette when his meal was done, twisting his chair
round so that he could see Addie Tristram's picture. He reviewed his
talk with Cecily, trying to trace how that unexpected turn in it had
come about and at what point the weapon had sprung into his hand. He had
used it with effect--whether with the effect he desired he did not yet
know. But his use of it had not been altogether a ruse or an artifice.
His sincerity, his vehemence, his very cruelty proved that. He had
spoken out a genuine resentment and a righteous reproach. Thence came
the power to meet Cecily's taunts in equal battle and to silence her
charges of deceit with his retort of meanness.

"And we were married to-day! And we're damnably in love with one
another!" he reflected. "I suppose we should seem queer to some people."
This was a great advance toward an outside view of the family. Certainly
such an idea had never occurred to Addie; she had always done the only
possible thing! "Now what will she do?"

At least it did not seem as though she meant to have any dinner. The
fact would have meant much had a man been concerned. With a woman it
possessed no more than a moderate significance. With a Tristram woman
perhaps it had none at all. A cigar succeeded the cigarette in Harry's
mouth, as he sat there looking at his mother's picture and thinking of
his wife. He did not in the least regret that she was his wife or that
he had lied. Any scruples that he ever had on that score he had removed
for himself by realizing that she was a curmudgeon. Neither did he
regret what he had called the troublesome affair. It had brought new
things into his life; new thoughts and new powers had become his. And it
had given him Cecily--unless one of them had still to go to town! He
glanced at the clock; it was half-past nine. A sudden excitement came on
him; but he conquered it or at least held it down, and sat there,
smoking still.

Mason returned and began to clear away. "Madame Zabriska has ordered
some soup and cla