be said that you have taken much pains to please me of late,"
she answered coldly.

The servant announced dinner at that moment, and Reanda made no answer,
though he glanced at her nervously. They went into the dining-room and
sat down.

The storm brewed during the silent meal. Reanda scarcely ate anything,
and drank a little weak wine and water.

"You hardly seem well enough to go out this evening," said Gloria, at
last, but there was no kindness in the tone.

"I am perfectly well," he answered impatiently. "I will go with you."

"There is not the slightest necessity," replied his wife. "I can go
alone, and you can go to bed."

"I tell you I am perfectly well!" he said with unconcealed annoyance.
"Let me alone."

"Certainly. Nothing is easier."

The voice was full of that injured dignity which most surely irritated
him, as Gloria knew. But the servant was in the room, and he said
nothing, though it was a real effort to be silent. His tongue had been
free that day, and it was hard to be bound again.

They finished dinner almost in silence, and then went back to the
drawing-room by force of habit. Gloria was still in her walking-dress,
but there was no hurry, and she resumed her favourite seat by the fire
for a time, before going to dress for the reception.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THERE was something exasperating in the renewal of the position exactly
as it had been before dinner. To make up for having eaten nothing,
Reanda drank two cups of coffee in silence.

"You might at least speak to me," observed Gloria, as he set down the
second cup. "One would almost think that we had quarrelled!"

The hard laugh that followed the words jarred upon him more painfully
than anything that had gone before. He laughed, too, after a moment's
silence, half hysterically.

"Yes," he said; "one might almost think that we had quarrelled!" And he
laughed again.

"The idea seems to amuse you," said Gloria, coldly.

"As it does you," he answered. "We both laughed. Indeed, it is very
amusing."

"Donna Francesca has sent you home in a good humour. That is rare. I
suppose I ought to be grateful."

"Yes. I am in a fine humour. It seems to me that we both are." He bit
his cigar, and blew out short puffs.

"You need not include me. Please do not smoke into my face."

The smoke was not very near her, but she made a movement with her hands
as though brushing it away.

"I beg your pardon," he said politely, and he moved t