“That wouldn’t satisfy him.  He thinks a man ought never to be beat; and that

  ’It isn’t so much the gallant who woos
   As the gallant’s way of wooing.’

But I do hope, Harry, you won’t have to marry Geraldine.  Fancy her mistress of ’The Towers!’—­no go!—­no fun! and she would collect the stupidest people in the county.”

“What a brilliant little chatelaine some one else would make!” quoth wicked Harry.

A glance—­one of Kate’s own—­which few men could stand and feel perfectly cool.  With all her flirtations,—­and at present she was most in love with Colonel Dashwood,—­she never forgot that if bereaved of their uncle by an opportune fit of the gout, few better matches could fall in her way than cousin Harry; so that a little quiet love-making with him was a useful investment in view of such a contingency; though, of course, she could not wait, if this dear uncle, as, indeed, was sadly probable, lived on indefinitely with Harry’s future still unassured.

Dutton blushed a little under Kate’s gaze, which affixed a serious meaning to his insincere words; but his eyes returned the challenge in hers, though the girl saw in an instant that the expression was not spontaneous, and Harry felt equally sure that the passion latent in his cousin’s was more for “The Towers” than himself; and then he laughed inwardly as he thought how different it would be if she knew he was married.

Several days passed, and the object of Harry’s visit was still unfulfilled.  Indeed, a good opportunity for the disclosure seemed more remote than ever.  Kate monopolized all the men in the house, and, being at home, Dutton, in common decency, could not suffer Lady Geraldine to be neglected.  There were only those two girls staying at “The Towers.”  Others sometimes came to dinner with their parents, and an impromptu dance was often got up.  Geraldine had begun to listen for Harry’s step, seat herself near a vacant chair, and thrill with delight when he took it.  No man dislikes such unconscious flattery, and Dutton, ill at ease in mind, felt himself soothed by her kindness.

On these occasions, Lord Bromley appeared bland and agreeable, Lady Calvert voluble and unobserving, and there was a sense of bien-etre over every one, Kate, perhaps, excepted.

Dutton had received one letter from his wife.  He had had a five mile-walk to get it from the post town he had bidden her address to, and opened it with a strange mixture of curiosity and yearning.  It was a very bright letter, made no complaints of loneliness, and was rather divertingly written, considering the limited topics at her command; and yet Harry crunched it up in his hand with a sensation of half anger and whole disappointment.  It was their first separation,—­they had not been married seven weeks,—­and there was scarcely an expression of affection in it!

He felt like a schoolboy who has coveted and caught some pretty wild animal for a pet, yet cannot succeed in making it fond of him.