"How well she listened to him!" was Lady Holme's mental comment.

"If half the world heard it doesn't matter if you and I choose it shouldn't. Unless--"

"Unless what?"

"Unless you did anything last night--afterwards--that will make a scandal?"

"Ah!"

"Did you?"

"That's all right."

He applied himself with energy to the toast. Lady Holme recognised, with a chagrin which she concealed, that Lord Holme was not going to allow himself to be "managed" into any revelation. She recognised it so thoroughly that she left the subject at once.

"We'd better forgive and forget," she said. "After all, we are married and I suppose we must stick together."

There was a clever note of regret in her voice.

"Are you sorry?" Lord Holme said, with a manner that suggested a readiness to be surly.

"For what?"

"That we're married?"

She sat calmly considering.

"Am I? Well, I must think. It's so difficult to be sure. I must compare you with other men--"

"If it comes to that, I might do a bit of comparin' too."

"I should be the last to prevent you, old boy. But I'm sure you've often done it already and always made up your mind afterwards that she wasn't quite up to the marrying mark."

"Who wasn't?"

"The other--horrid creature."

He could not repress a chuckle.

"You're deuced conceited," he said.

"You've made me so."

"I--how?"

"By marrying me first and adoring me afterwards."

They had finished tea and were no longer preoccupied with cups and saucers. It was very bright in the room, very silent. Lord Holme looked at his wife and remembered how much she was admired by other men, how many men would give--whatever men are ready to give--to see her as she was just then. It occurred to him that he would have been rather a fool if he had yielded to his violent impulse and shut her out of the house the previous night.

"You're never to speak to that cad again," he said. "D'you hear?"

"Whisper it close in my ear and I'll try to hear. Your voice is so--what's your expression--so infernally soft."

He put his great arm round her.

"D'you hear?"

"I'm trying."

"I'll make you."

Whether Lord Holme succeeded or not, Lady Holme had no opportunity--even if she desired it--of speaking to Rupert Carey for some time. He left London and went up to the North to stay with his mother. The only person he saw before he went was Robin Pierce. He came round to Half Moon Street early on the afternoon of the day after the Arkell House Ball.

Robin was at home and Carey walked in with his usual decision. He was very pale, and his face looked very hard. Robin received him coldly and did not ask him to sit down. That was not necessary, of course. But Robin was standing by the door and did not move back into the room.

"I'm going North to-night," said Carey.

"Are you?"

"Yes. If you don't mind I'll sit down."

Robin said nothing. Carey threw himself into an armchair.

"Going to see the mater. A funny thing--but she's always glad to see me."

"Why not?"

"Mothers have a knack that way. Lucky for sons like me."

There was intense bitterness in his voice, but there was a sound of tenderness too. Robin shut the door but did not sit down.

"Are you going to be in the country long?"

"Don't know. What time did you leave Arkell House last night?"

"Not till after Lady Holme left."

"Oh!"

He was silent for a moment, biting his red moustache.

"Were you in the hall after the last lancers?"

"No."

"You weren't?"

He spoke quickly, with a sort of relief, hesitated then added sardonically: