take care of herself--not to say that she has me? It's a thousand pities
to keep you from the country which you prefer, especially as, after all,
Nell can be so little with you."

"It would be much better for her at present, Philip, to come with me,
and rest at home, while you go to Goodwood. For the sake of the future
you ought to persuade her to do it."

"I daresay. Try yourself to persuade her to leave me. She won't, you
know. But why should you bore yourself to death staying on here? You
don't like it, and nobody----"

"Wants me, you mean, Philip."

"I never said anything so dashed straightforward. I am not a chap of
that kind. But what I say is, it's a shame to keep you hanging on,
disturbed in your rest and all that sort of thing. That noisy beggar,
Dismar, that came in with us last night must have woke you up with his
idiotic bellowing."

"It doesn't matter for me; but Elinor, Philip. It does matter for your
wife. If her rest is broken it will react upon her in every way. I wish
you would consent to forego those visitors in the middle of the night."

He looked at her with a sort of satirical indifference. "Sorry I can't
oblige you," he said. "When a girl's friends fork out handsomely a man
has some reason for paying a little attention. But when there's nothing,
or next to nothing, on her side, why of course he must pick up a little
where he can, as much for her sake as his own."

"Pick up a little!" said Mrs. Dennistoun.

"I wish you wouldn't repeat what I say like that. It makes a fellow
nervous. Yes, of course, a man that knows what he's about does pick up a
little. About your movements, however. I advise you to take my advice
and go back to your snug little house. It would kill me in a week, but I
know it suits you. Why hang on for Nell? She's as well as can be, and
there's a few things that it would be good for us to do."

"Which you cannot do while I am here? Is that what you mean, Philip?"

"I never saw any good in being what the French call brutal," he said, "I
hate making a woman cry, or that sort of thing. But you're a woman of
sense, and I'm sure you must see that a young couple like Nell and me,
who have our way to make in the world----"

"You know it was for her sake entirely that I came here."

"Yes, oh, yes. To do coddling and that sort of thing--which she doesn't
require a bit; but if I must be brutal you know there's things of much
consequence we could do if----"

"If what, Philip?