place," she said. "Are there any letters for me?"

He untied the string of the packet, looked over the contents, and handed
her three or four.

"And now run away and read yours," she said. "When you're in my room I
can do nothing. You take up all my attention. I'll come down in a few
minutes."

He gave her a kiss and obeyed her.

When he was in the little drawing-room, he threw the papers carelessly
on a table without taking off their wrappers. He had scarcely looked at
a paper since he had been in Egypt; he had had other things to do,
things that had engrossed him mind and body. Like many men who are
informed by a vital enthusiasm, Nigel sometimes lived for a time in
blinkers, which shut out from his view completely the world to right and
left of him. He could be an almost terribly concentrated man. And since
he had been in Egypt he had been concentrated on his wife, and on his
own life in relation to her. The affairs of the nations had not troubled
him. He had read his letters, and little besides. Now he took those
which had come that morning, and went out upon the terrace to run
through them in the sunshine.

Bills, a communication from his agent at Etchingham, a note from his man
of affairs in Cairo, and--hullo!--a letter from his brother, Harwich!

That did not promise him much pleasure. Already he had received several
family letters scarcely rejoicing in his marriage. They had not bothered
him as much as he had formerly feared they would. He did not expect his
relations, or the world, to look at things with his eyes, to think of
Ruby with gentleness or even forgiveness for her past. He knew his world
too well to make preposterous mental demands upon it. But Harwich had
already expressed himself with his usual freedom. There seemed no
particular reason why he should write so soon again.

Nigel tore open the letter, read it quickly, re-read it, then laid it
down upon his knees, pulled his linen hat over his eyes, and sat for a
long while quite motionless, thinking.

His brother's letter informed him that his sister-in-law, Zoe, Harwich's
wife, had given birth to twin children--sons--and that they were
"stunningly well--hip, hip, hooray!"

Harwich's boisterous joy was very natural, and might be supposed to
spring from paternal feelings that did him honour, but there was a note
of triumph in his exultation which Nigel understood, and which made him
thoughtful now. Harwich was glorying in the fact that Nigel