So, thus admonished, Colonel Lowerby went on with his luncheon.

Zara’s eyes looked more stormy than ever, when her husband chanced to see them.  He was sitting nearly opposite her, and he wondered what on earth she was thinking about.  He was filled with a concentrated bitterness from the events of the morning.  Her utter indifference over the Laura incident had galled him unbearably, although he told himself, as he had done before, the unconscionable fool he was to allow himself to go on being freshly wounded by each continued proof of her disdain of him.  Why, when he knew a thing, should he not be prepared for it?  He had a strong will; he would overcome his emotion for her.  He could, at least, make himself treat her, outwardly with the same apparent insolent indifference, as she treated him.

He made a firm resolve once again, he would not speak to her at all, any more than he had done the last three days in Paris.  He would accept the position until the Wrayth rejoicings were over, and then he would certainly make arrangements to go and shoot lions, or travel, or something.  There should be no further “perhaps” about it.  Life, with the agonizing longing for her, seeing her daily and being denied, was more than could be borne.

There was something about Zara’s type, the white, exquisite beauty of her skin, her slenderly voluptuous shape, the stormy suggestion of hidden passion in her slumberous eyes, which had always aroused absolutely mad emotions in men.  Tristram, who was a normal Englishman, self-contained and reserved, and too completely healthy to be highly-strung, felt undreamed-of sensations rise in him when he looked at her, which was as rarely as possible.  He understood now what was meant by an obsession—­all the states of love he had read of in French novels and dismissed as “tommyrot.”  She did not only affect him with a thrilling physical passion.  It was an obsession of the mind as well.  He suffered acutely; as each day passed it seemed as if he could not bear any more, and the next always brought some further pain.

They had actually only been married for ten days! and it seemed an eternity of anguish to both of them, for different reasons.

Zara’s nature was trying to break through the iron bands of her life training.  Once she had admitted to herself that she loved her husband, her suffering was as deep as his, only that she was more practiced in the art of suppressing all emotion.  But it was no wonder that they both looked pale and stern, and quite unbridal.

The sportsmen started immediately after lunch again, and the ladies returned to their delightful work; and, when they all assembled for tea, everything was almost completed.  Zara had been unable to resist the current of light-hearted gayety which was in the air, and now felt considerably better; so she allowed Lord Elterton to sit beside her after tea and pour homage at her feet, with the expression of an empress listening to an address of loyalty from some distant colony; and the Crow leant back in his chair and chuckled to himself, much to Lady Anningford’s annoyance.