is
engaged in crushing one: a consciousness that was plainly denied to Miss
Du Prel. Many a man far less able than Hubert had power to interest her,
while he could not even hold her attention. She used to complain to
Professor Fortescue that Temperley's ideas never seemed to have
originated in his own brain: they had been imported ready-made. Hubert
was among the many who shrink and harden into mental furrows as time
passes. What he had thought at twenty, at thirty-five had acquired
sanctity and certainty, from having been the opinion of Hubert Temperley
for all those favoured years. He had no suspicion that the views which
he cherished in so dainty and scholarly a fashion were simply an
_edition de luxe_ of the views of everybody else. But his wife had made
that discovery long ago. He smiled at the views of everybody else: his
own were put forth as something choice and superior. He had the happy
knack of being _bourgeois_ with the air of an artist. If one could
picture one's grocer weighing out sugar in a Spanish cloak and brigand's
hat, it would afford an excellent symbol of his spiritual estate. To be
perfectly commonplace in a brilliantly original way, is to be notable
after all.

Mr. Fleming seemed puzzled by Miss Du Prel, at whom he glanced uneasily
from time to time, wondering what she would say next. At Craddock Dene,
ladies usually listened with a more or less breathless deference when
Temperley spoke. This new-comer seemed recklessly independent.

Mrs. Temperley endeavoured to lead the conversation in ways of peace,
but Valeria was evidently on the war-path. Temperley was polite and
ironical, with under-meanings for Hadria's benefit.

"If one asks impossible things of life, one is apt to be disappointed, I
fear," he said serenely. "Ask for the possible and natural harvest of a
woman's career, and see if you don't get it."

"Let a canary plead for its cage, in short, and its commendable prayer
will be answered!"

"If you like to put it thus ungraciously. I should say that one who
makes the most of his opportunities, as they stand, fares better than he
who sighs for other worlds to conquer."

"I suppose that is what his relatives said to Columbus," observed Miss
Du Prel.

"And how do you know they were not right?" he retorted.

Mrs. Temperley gave the signal to rise. "Let's go for a walk," she
suggested, "the afternoon invites us. Look at it."

The brilliant sunshine and the exercise brought about a