hority at his office. He could tell his friends, with some little
degree of pleasure in the sound, that Lady Alexandrina would be very
happy to see them. And he could make himself comfortable in his own
chair after dinner, with his slippers and his newspaper. He could
make himself comfortable, or at any rate could tell his wife that he
did so.

It was very dull. He was obliged to acknowledge to himself, when he
thought over the subject, that the life which he was leading was
dull. Though he could go into his club without annoyance, nobody
there ever thought of asking him to join them at dinner. It was taken
for granted that he was going to dine at home; and in the absence of
any provocation to the contrary, he always did dine at home. He had
now been in his house for three weeks, and had been asked with his
wife to a few bridal dinner-parties, given chiefly by friends of the
de Courcy family. Except on such occasions he never passed an evening
out of his own house, and had not yet, since his marriage, dined once
away from his wife. He told himself that his good conduct in this
respect was the result of his own resolution; but, nevertheless, he
felt that there was nothing else left for him to do. Nobody asked him
to go to the theatre. Nobody begged him to drop in of an evening.
Men never asked him why he did not play a rubber. He would generally
saunter into Sebright's after he left his office, and lounge about
the room for half an hour, talking to a few men. Nobody was uncivil
to him. But he knew that the whole thing was changed, and he
resolved, with some wisdom, to accommodate himself to his altered
circumstances.

Lady Alexandrina also found her new life rather dull, and was
sometimes inclined to be a little querulous. She would tell her
husband that she never got out, and would declare, when he offered to
walk with her, that she did not care for walking in the streets. "I
don't exactly see, then, where you are to walk," he once replied. She
did not tell him that she was fond of riding, and that the Park was
a very fitting place for such exercise; but she looked it, and he
understood her. "I'll do all I can for her," he said to himself; "but
I'll not ruin myself." "Amelia is coming to take me for a drive," she
said another time. "Ah, that'll be very nice," he answered. "No; it
won't be very nice," said Alexandrina. "Amelia is always shopping and
bargaining with the tradespeople. But it will be better than being
ke