said Honora, relieved by the change of
subject. "To drive in one must be such a wonderful sensation."

"I'll let you know when it stops shooting up the garage and consents to
move out," he said. "I'll take you down to Quicksands in it."

The prospective arrival of Mr. Brent's French motor car, which was looked
for daily, had indeed been one of the chief topics of conversation at
Quicksands that summer. He could appear at no lunch or dinner party
without being subjected to a shower of questions as to where it was, and
as many as half a dozen different women among whom was Mrs. Chandos
--declared that he had promised to bring them out from New York on the
occasion of its triumphal entry into the colony. Honora, needless to say,
had betrayed no curiosity.

Neither Mr. Shorter nor Mr. Cuthbert had appeared at the real estate
office when, at a little after nine o'clock; Honora asked for the keys.
And an office boy, perched on the box seat of the carriage, drove with
them to the house and opened the wrought-iron gate that guarded the
entrance, and the massive front door. Honora had a sense of unreality as
they entered, and told herself it was obviously ridiculous that she
should aspire to such a dwelling. Yesterday, under the spell of that
somewhat adventurous excursion with Mr. Cuthbert, she had pictured
herself as installed. He had contrived somehow to give her a sense of
intimacy with the people who lived thereabout--his own friends.

Perhaps it was her husband who was the disillusionizing note as he stood
on the polished floor of the sunflooded drawing-room. Although bare of
furniture, it was eloquent to Honora of a kind of taste not to be found
at Quicksands: it carried her back, by undiscernible channels of thought,
to the impression which, in her childhood, the Hanbury mansion had always
made. Howard, in her present whimsical fancy, even seemed a little
grotesque in such a setting. His inevitable pink shirt and obviously
prosperous clothes made discord there, and she knew in this moment that
he was appraising the house from a commercial standpoint. His comment
confirmed her guess.

"If I were starting out to blow myself, or you, Honora," he said, poking
with his stick a marmouset of the carved stone mantel, "I'd get a little
more for my money while I was about it."

Honora did not reply. She looked out of the window instead.

"See here, old man," said Trixton Brent, "I'm not a real estate dealer or
an architect