“Good night, gents.  My best respects to you, Mrs. Chetwynd, but we knows who wants us and who doesn’t.”

Bella turned indignantly to her husband.  “And you call yourself a gentleman!” she cried.

“For heaven’s sake remember we are not alone!” whispered Chetwynd in distress, “you have distinguished yourself quite enough.”

“I don’t care—­you have insulted my friends.”

“Friends!”

“Yes, and as good as you or I. What did you marry me for if you are ashamed of my connections?”

“I did not marry the whole variety stage.”

At this juncture Meynell rose.

“Awfully sorry, but I must be going old chap, promised to look in again at the club.”  And Chetwynd did not press him to stay.  Humiliated to the last degree, he followed him downstairs.

“I have given you a very enjoyable evening, Meynell,” he said bitterly.

“My dear fellow, what ought I to say?”

“I’m damned if I know; I’ve never visited a friend who made such a marriage as mine.  I should have pitied the poor devil profoundly if I had.  Good night, old chap.”

The hall door shut, and Chetwynd went slowly, sorrowfully back to the drawing-room.

“I hope you have disgraced me enough to-night,” he said stormily.

“Where’s the disgrace, I should like to know, in inviting a couple of old friends into one’s own house?” demanded Saidie aggressively.

Chetwynd promptly turned his back upon her.  “I am addressing my wife,” he said frigidly.

“Yes; I would like to see you talking to me in that tone of voice,” returned his sister-in-law.

“Bella, what have you to say for yourself?  Have you no self-respect whatever, and no consideration for your husband’s position?”

“Oh, I’m sick of hearing about your position,” said his wife pettishly.  “In the days when you had not any, we were a lot happier.  You didn’t turn up your nose at my associates when I was on the boards at the Band Box!  Everything was charming.  You laughed then at what you now call “vulgar,” and you thought it good fun, and you would have taken the property man to your heart if I had told you he was my brother.  But now I am your wife it is quite a different tale.  My friends are too common for you to mix with.  By the Lord!  I’m not at all certain whether you think me good enough for you, myself.”

“Bella, Bella!”

“Oh!  Yes, it is easy enough to look broken-hearted.  How dare you turn my friends out of the place?  It is you, not I, who have brought disgrace upon us by introducing a stranger here and mortifying and humbling me in front of him.  If the Dosses are good enough for me, they are good enough for my husband.”

“My dear wife, they are not good enough for you.  There is the whole truth.  Why are you so altered?  Why will you not listen to me and take my advice as you used to do?  Have you forgotten how happy we once were with each other?”