lightness.

It was the Hungarian Rhapsody, impetuous and brilliant as ever. How she
hated it now--this symbol of the hurried, unheeding, relentless, hollow
gaiety of the world! Yet she longed for the magic fingers of the player,
that she, too, might smother grief in such glittering veils!

IV

The marriage which had begun so dramatically fell into placid routine.
Edward fulfilled the prophecy of the doctor. In a week they were able to
go to Bournemouth for a few days, and in less than a fortnight he was at
the office--the strong man again, confident and ambitious.

After days devoted to finance, he came home in the evenings
high-spirited and determined to enjoy himself. His voice was firm and
his eye steady when he spoke to his wife; there was no trace of
self-consciousness in his demeanour. She admired the masculinity of the
brain that could forget by an effort of will. She felt that he trusted
her to forget also; that he relied on her common-sense, her
characteristic sagacity, to extinguish for ever the memory of an awkward
incident. He loved her. He was intensely proud of her. He treated her
with every sort of generosity. And in return he expected her to behave
like a man.

She loved him. She esteemed him as a wife should. She made a profession
of wifehood. He gave his days to finance and his nights to diversion;
but her vocation was always with her--she was never off duty. She aimed
to please him to the uttermost in everything, to be in all respects the
ideal helpmate of a husband who was at once strenuous, fastidious, and
wealthy. Elegance and suavity were a religion with her. She was the
delight of the eye and of the ear, the soother of groans, the refuge of
distress, the uplifter of the heart.

She made new acquaintances for him, and cemented old friendships. Her
manner towards his old friends enchanted him; but when they were gone
she had a way of making him feel that she was only his. She thought that
she was succeeding in her aim. She thought that all these sweet, endless
labours--of traffic with dressmakers, milliners, coiffeurs, maids,
cooks, and furnishers; of paying and receiving calls; of delicious
surprise journeys to the City to bring home the breadwinner; of giving
and accepting dinners; of sitting alert and appreciative in theatres and
music-halls; of supping in golden restaurants; of being serious,
cautionary, submissive, and seductive; of smiles, laughter, and kisses;
and of continuous s