ry forcibly.

He walked away to where his wife was sitting.

'What time is it?' whispered Catherine, looking up at him.

'Time to go,' he returned, smiling, but she caught the discomposure in
his tone and look at once, and her wifely heart rose against the Squire.
She got up, drawing herself together with a gesture that became her.

Then let us go at once,' said she. 'Where is Rose?'

A minute later there was a general leave-taking. Oddly enough it found
the Squire in the midst of a conversation with Langham. As though to
show more clearly that it was the Rector personally who was in his black
books, Mr. Wendover had already devoted some cold attention to Catherine
both at and after dinner, and he had no sooner routed Robert than he
moved in his slouching way across from Mr. Bickerton to Langham. And
now, another man altogether, he was talking and laughing--describing
apparently a reception at the French Academy--the epigrams flying, the
harsh face all lit up, the thin bony fingers gesticulating freely.

The husband and wife exchanged glances as they stood waiting, while lady
Charlotte, in her loudest voice, was commanding Rose to come and see
her in London any Thursday after the first of November. Robert was very
sore. Catherine passionately felt it, and forgetting everything but him,
longed to be out with him in the park comforting him.

'What an absurd fuss you have been making about that girl,' Wynnstay
exclaimed to his wife as the Elsmere party left the room, the Squire
conducting Catherine with a chill politeness. 'And now, I suppose, you
will be having her up in town, and making some young fellow who ought
to know better fall in love with her. I am told the father was a
grammar-school headmaster. Why can't you leave people where they
belong?'

'I have already pointed out to you,' Lady Charlotte observed calmly,
'that the world has moved on since you were launched into it. I can't
keep up class-distinctions to please you; otherwise, no doubt, being
the devoted wife I am, I might try. However, my dear, we both have our
fancies. You collect Sevres china with or without a pedigree,' and she
coughed dryly; 'I collect promising young women. On the whole, I think
my hobby is more beneficial to you than yours is profitable to me.'

Mr. Wynnstay was furious. Only a week before he had been childishly,
shamefully taken in by a Jew curiosity dealer from Vienna, to his wife's
huge amusement. If looks could have crush