* * * * *

“Rachel?”

“Hugh!”

“Don’t you think it would be better if we were married immediately?”

“Better than what?”

“Oh, I don’t know; better than breaking it off.”

“You can’t break it off now.  I’m not a person to be trifled with.  You have gone too far.”

“If you gave me half your attention, you would understand that I am only expressing a wish to go a little further, but you have become so frivolous since we have been engaged that I hardly recognize you.”

“I suit myself to my company.”

“Are you going to talk to me in that flippant manner when we are married.  I sometimes fear, Rachel, you don’t look upon me with sufficient awe.  I foresee I shall have to be very firm when we are married.  When may I begin to be firm?”

“Are these such evil days, Hugh?”

“I am like Oliver Twist,” he said.  “I want more.”

* * * * *

They were sitting together one afternoon in the fire-light in silence.  They often sat in silence together.

“A wise woman once advised me,” said Rachel at last, “if I married, never to tell my husband of any previous attachment.  She said, Let him always believe that he was the first

     That ever burst
     Into that silent sea.

I believe it was good advice, but it seems to me to have one drawback—­to follow it may be to tell a lie.  It would be in my case.”

Silence.

“I know that a lie and an adroit appeal to the vanity of man are supposed to be a woman’s recognized weapons.  The same woman told me that I might find myself mistaken in many things in this world, but never in counting on the vanity of man.  She said that was a reed which would never pierce my hand.  I don’t think you are vain, Hugh.”

“Not vain!  Why, I am so conceited at the fact that you are going to marry me that I look down on every one else.  I only long to tell them so.  When may I tell my mother, Rachel?  She is coming to London this week.”

“You have the pertinacity of a fly.  You always come back to the same point.  I am beginning to be rather bored with your marriage.  You can’t talk of anything else.”

“I can’t think about anything else.”

He drew her cheek against his.  He was an ingratiating creature.

“Neither can I,” she whispered.

And that was all Rachel ever said of all she meant to say about Mr. Tristram.

* * * * *

A yellow fog.  It made rings round the shaded electric lamp by which Rachel was reading.  The fire burned tawny and blurred.  Even her red gown looked dim.  Hugh came in.

“What are you reading?” he said, sitting down by her.

He did not want to know, but if you are reading a book on another person’s knee you cannot be a very long way off.  He glanced with feigned interest at the open page, stooping a little, for he was short-sighted now and then—­at least now.