’Oh no; she’ll be all right in the morning.  She has been crying.  She suffers from depression of spirits.  She is, I assure you, all right,’ said Mrs. Bentley, replying to Hubert’s alarmed and questioning face.  ’I assure you there is no need for you to reproach yourself.  Dinner is ready.’  She took his arm, and they went into the dining-room.

No further mention was made of Mr. Burnett, of money matters, or of the young lady up-stairs; and with considerable tact Mrs. Bentley introduced the subject of literature, alluding gracefully to Hubert’s position as a dramatist.

‘Your play, Divorce, is now running at the Queen’s Theatre?’

No; I’m sorry to say it was taken out of the bills last Saturday.  Saturday night was the last performance.’

‘That was not a long run.  And the papers spoke so favourably of it.’

‘It is a play that only appeals to the few.’  And, encouraged by Mrs. Bentley’s manner, Hubert told her how happy endings and comic love-scenes were essential to secure a popular success.

‘I am afraid you will think me very stupid, but I do not quite understand.’

In a quiet, unobtrusive way Hubert was a graceful talker, and he knew how to adapt his theme, and bring it within the circle of the sympathies of his listeners.  There was some similarity of temperament between himself and Mrs. Bentley; they were both quiet, fair, meditative Saxons.  She lent her whole mind to the conversation, interested in the account that the young man gave of his dramatic aspirations.

From the dining-room window looking over the park the long road wound through the vaporous country.  The town stood in the middle distance, its colour blotted out, and its smoke hardly distinguishable.  In the room a yellow dress turned grey, and the gold of a bracelet grew darker, and the pink of delicate finger-nails was no longer visible.  But the pensive dusk of the dining-room, which blackened the claret in the decanters, leaving only the faintest ruby glow in the glass which Hubert raised to his lips, suited the tenor of the conversation, which had wandered from the dramatic to the social side of the question.  What did he think of divorce?  She sighed, and he wondered what her story might be.

They passed out of the dining-room, and stood on the gravel, watching the night gathering in the open country.  In the light of the moon, which had just risen above the woods, the white road grew whiter, the town was faintly seen in the tide of blue vapour, which here and there allowed a field to appear.  In the foreground a great silver fir, spiky and solitary, rose up in the blue night.  Beyond it was seen a corner of the ornamental bridge.  The island and its shadow were one black mass rising from the park up to the level of the moon, which, a little to the right, between the town and the island, lay reflected in a narrow strip of water.  Farther away some reeds were visible in the illusive light, and the meditative chatter of dozing ducks stirred the silence which wrapped the country like a cloak.