vation--he said, much
displeased, "But I am not a villa," and looked at her as he looks who
hopes, for perhaps the hundredth time, that he may not have married a
fool.

Of course he was not a villa, Mrs. Wilkins assured him; she had
never supposed he was; she had not dreamed of meaning . . . she was
only just thinking . . .

The more she explained the more earnest became Mellersh's hope,
familiar to him by this time, for he had then been a husband for two
years, that he might not by any chance have married a fool; and they
had a prolonged quarrel, if that can be called a quarrel which is
conducted with dignified silence on one side and earnest apology on the
other, as to whether or no Mrs. Wilkins had intended to suggest that
Mr. Wilkins was a villa.

"I believe," she had thought when it was at last over--it took a
long while--"that anybody would quarrel about anything when they've not
left off being together for a single day for two whole years. What we
both need is a holiday."

"My husband," went on Mrs. Wilkins to Mrs. Arbuthnot, trying to
throw some light on herself, "is a solicitor. He--" She cast about for
something she could say elucidatory of Mellersh, and found: "He's very
handsome."

"Well," said Mrs. Arbuthnot kindly, "that must be a great
pleasure to you."

"Why?" asked Mrs. Wilkins.

"Because," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, a little taken aback, for
constant intercourse with the poor had accustomed her to have her
pronouncements accepted without question, "because beauty--handsomeness--
is a gift like any other, and if it is properly used--"

She trailed off into silence. Mrs. Wilkins's great grey eyes
were fixed on her, and it seemed suddenly to Mrs. Arbuthnot that
perhaps she was becoming crystallized into a habit of exposition, and
of exposition after the manner of nursemaids, through having an
audience that couldn't but agree, that would be afraid, if it wished,
to interrupt, that didn't know, that was, in fact, at her mercy.

But Mrs. Wilkins was not listening; for just then, absurd as it
seemed, a picture had flashed across her brain, and there were two
figures in it sitting together under a great trailing wisteria that
stretched across the branches of a tree she didn't know, and it was
herself and Mrs. Arbuthnot--she saw them--she saw them. And behind
them, bright in sunshine, were old grey walls--the mediaeval castle
--she saw it--they were there . . .

She therefore stared at Mrs. Arbuth