neither one nor the other."

It was Lady Corless' custom to spend the evenings with her husband
in the smoking-room. When he had dined--and he always dined well--he
settled down in a large armchair with a decanter of whisky and a box of
cigars beside him.

There was always, summer and winter, a fire burning on the open hearth.
There was a good supply of newspapers and magazines, for Sir Tony,
though he lived apart from the world, liked to keep in touch with
politics and the questions of the day. Lady Corless sat opposite him on
a much less comfortable chair and knitted stockings. If there was any
news in the village, she told it to him, and he listened, for, like many
old men, he took a deep interest in his neighbour's affairs.

If there was anything important or curious in the papers, he read it out
to her. But she very seldom listened. Her strong common sense saved her
from taking any interest in the war while it lasted, the peace, when it
was discussed, or politics, which gurgle on through war and peace alike.

With the care of a great house, a garden, and eighty acres of land on
her shoulders, she had no mental energy to spare for public affairs of
any kind. Between half-past ten and eleven Sir Tony went to bed. He was
an old gentleman of regular habits, and by that time the whisky-decanter
was always empty. Lady Cor-less helped him upstairs, saw to it that
his fire was burning and his pyjamas warm. She dealt with buttons and
collar-studs, which are sometimes troublesome to old gentlemen who have
drunk port at dinner and whisky afterwards. She wound his watch for him,
and left him warm and sleeping comfortably.

One evening Sir Tony read from an English paper a paragraph which caught
Lady Corless' attention. It was an account of the means by which the
Government hoped to mitigate the evils of the unemployment likely to
follow demobilisation and the closing of munition works. An out-of-work
benefit of twenty-five shillings a week struck her as a capital thing,
likely to become very popular. For the first time in her life she became
slightly interested in politics.

Sir Tony passed from that paragraph to another, which dealt with the
future of Dantzig. Lady Corless at once stopped listening to what he
read. She went on knitting her stocking; but instead of letting her
thoughts work on the problems of the eggs laid by her hens, and the
fish for Sir Tony's dinner the next day, she turned over in her mind the
asto