point of view?" he said. "Then I fear I have been
neglecting my duty most outrageously. However, it is an omission easily
remedied. Let me hear no more of this masquerade, Lady Brooke! You have
my orders, and if you transgress them you will be punished in a fashion
scarcely to your liking. Is that clearly understood?"

He looked straight up at her with cold, smiling eyes that yet seemed to
convey a steely warning.

She shivered very slightly as she encountered them. "You make a mockery
of everything," she said, her voice very low.

Sir Roland uttered a quiet laugh.

"I am nevertheless a man of my word, Naomi," he said. "If you wish to
test me, you have your opportunity."

He immersed himself finally in his paper as he ended, and she, with a
smile of proud contempt, turned and passed from the room.

She had married him out of pique, it was true, but life with him had
never seemed intolerable until he had shown her that he knew it.

She took her invitation with her, and in her own room sat down to read
it once again. It was from a near neighbour, Lady Blythebury, an
acquaintance with whom she was more intimate than was Sir Roland. Lady
Blythebury was a very lively person indeed. She had been on the stage in
her young days, and she had decidedly advanced ideas on the subject of
social entertainment. As a hostess, she was notorious for her
originality and energy, and though some of the county families
disapproved of her, she always knew how to secure as many guests as she
desired. Lady Brooke had known her previous to her own marriage, and she
clung to this friendship, notwithstanding Sir Roland's very obvious lack
of sympathy.

He knew Lord Blythebury in the hunting-field. Their properties adjoined,
and it was inevitable that certain courtesies should be exchanged. But
he refused so steadily to fall a captive to Lady Blythebury's bow and
spear, that he very speedily aroused her aversion. He soon realised that
her influence over his wife was very far from benevolent towards
himself, but, save that he persisted in declining all social invitations
to Blythebury, he made no attempt to counteract the evil. In fact, it
was not his custom to coerce her. He denied her very little, though with
regard to that little he was as adamant.

But to Naomi his non-interference was many a time more galling than his
interdiction. It was but seldom that she attempted to oppose him, and,
save that Lady Blythebury's masquerade had bee