He crossed his long legs and leaned back, resting his head on a cushion, and puffing the smoke towards the ceiling.

"They all seemed cheery--what? Even Lady Cardington only cried when you were squallin'."

It was Lord Holme's habit to speak irreverently of anything he happened to admire.

"She had reason to cry. Miss Filberte's accompaniment was a tragedy. She never comes here again."

"What's the row with her? I thought her fingers got about over the piano awful quick."

"They did--on the wrong notes."

She came and sat down beside him.

"You don't understand music, Fritz, thank goodness."

"I know I don't. But why thank what's-his-name?"

"Because the men that do are usually such anaemic, dolly things, such shaved poodles with their Sunday bows on."

"What about that chap Pierce? He's up to all the scales and thingumies, isn't he?"

"Robin--"

"Pierce I said."

"And I said Robin."

Lord Holme frowned and stuck out his under jaw. When he was irritated he always made haste to look like a prize-fighter. His prominent cheek-bones, and the abnormal development of bone in the lower part of his face, helped the illusion whose creation was begun by his expression.

"Look here, Vi," he said gruffly. "If you get up to any nonsense there'll be another Carey business. I give you the tip, and you can just take it in time. Don't you make any mistake. I'm not a Brenford, or a Godley-Halstoun, or a Pennisford, to sit by and--"

"What a pity it is that your body's so big and your intelligence so small!" she interrupted gently. "Why aren't there Sandow exercises for increasing the brain?"

"I've quite enough brain to rub along with very well. If I'd chosen to take it I could have been undersecretary---"

"You've told me that so many times, old darling, and I really can't believe it. The Premier's very silly. Everybody knows that. But he's still got just a faint idea of the few things the country won't stand.

And you are one of them, you truly are. You don't go down even with the Primrose League, and they simply worship at the shrine of the great Ar-rar."

"Fool or not, I'd kick out Pierce as I kicked out Carey if I thought--"

"And suppose I wouldn't let you?"

Her voice had suddenly changed. There was in it the sharp sound which had so overwhelmed Miss Filberte.

Lord Holme sat straight up and looked at his wife.

"Suppose--what?"

"Suppose I declined to let you behave ridiculously a second time."

"Ridiculously! I like that! Do you stick out that Carey didn't love you?"

"Half London loves me. I'm one of the most attractive women in it.

That's why you married me, blessed boy."

"Carey's a violent ass. Red-headed men always are. There's a chap at White's--"

"I know, I know. You told me about him when you forbade poor Mr. Carey the house. But Robin's hair is black and he's the gentlest creature in diplomacy."

"I wouldn't trust him a yard."

"Believe me, he doesn't wish you to. He's far too clever to desire the impossible."

"Then he can stop desirin' you."

"Don't be insulting, Fritz. Remember that by birth you are a gentleman."

Lord Holme bit through his cigarette.

"Sometimes I wish you were an ugly woman," he muttered.

"And if I were?"

She leaned forward quite eagerly on the sofa and her whimsical, spoilt-child manner dropped away from her.

"You ain't."

"Don't be silly. I know I'm not, of course. But if I were to become one?"

"What?"

"Really, Fritz, there's no sort of continuity in your mental processes.

If I were to become an ugly woman, what would you feel about me then?"

"How the deuce could you become ugly?"

"Oh, in a hundred ways. I might have smallpox and be pitted for life, or be scalded in the face as poor people's babies often are, or have vitriol thrown over me as lots of women do in Paris, or any number of things."

"What rot! Who'd throw vitriol over you, I should like to know?"

He lit a fresh cigarette with tender solicitude. Lady Holme began to look irritated.

"Do use your imagination!" she cried.

"Haven't got one, thank God!" he returned philosophically.

"I insist upon your imagining me ugly. Do you hear, I insist upon it."