viewed womankind with instinctive contempt, yet pleased all with the
flattery of his homage.

'Well, then, we won't talk of it,' he said, noticing, in the same
moment, that her person did not lack the adornment of jewels. Perhaps
she had happened to be wearing these things on the evening of the
robbery; but Rolfe felt a conviction that, under any circumstances,
Sibyl would not be without rings and bracelets.

'They certainly improve,' she remarked, indicating the quartet with the
tip of her fan.

Her opinions were uttered with calm assurance, whatever the subject. An
infinite self-esteem, so placid that it never suggested the vulgarity
of conceit, shone in her large eyes and dwelt upon the beautiful curve
of her lips. No face could be of purer outline, of less sensual
suggestiveness; it wore at times an air of cold abstraction which was
all but austerity. Rolfe imagined her the most selfish of women,
thought her incapable of sentiment; yet how was her marriage to be
accounted for, save by supposing that she fell in love with Hugh
Carnaby? Such a woman might surely have sold herself to great
advantage; and yet--odd incongruity--she did not impress one as
socially ambitious. Her mother, the ever-youthful widow, sped from
assembly to assembly, unable to live save in the whirl of fashion; not
so Sibyl. Was she too proud, too self-centred? And what ambition did
she nourish?

Or was it all an illusion of the senses? Suppose her a mere graven
image, hollow, void. Call her merely a handsome woman, with the face of
some remarkable ancestress, with just enough of warmth to be subdued by
the vigorous passion of such a fine fellow as Carnaby. On the whole,
Rolfe preferred this hypothesis. He had never heard her say anything
really bright, or witty, or significant. But Hugh spoke of her fine
qualities of head and heart; Alma Frothingham made her an exemplar, and
would not one woman see through the vacuous pretentiousness of another?

Involuntarily, he was gazing at her, trying to read her face.

'So you think we ought to go to Australia,' said Sibyl quietly,
returning his look.

Hugh had repeated the conversation of last night; indiscreet, but
natural. One could not suppose that Hugh kept many secrets from his
wife.

'I?' He was confused. 'Oh, we were talking about the miseries of
housekeeping----'

'I hate the name of those new countries.'

It was said smilingly, but with what expression in the word 'hate'!

'Vigorou