“I wonder you don’t live in the country.”

“I know what you mean.  But you’re wrong.  One feels even more out of it there.”

She gave him his cup gently, with a movement that implied care for his comfort, almost a thoughtful, happy service.

“The Rector is embarrassed, his wife appalled.  The Doctor’s ‘lady,’ much as she longs for one’s guineas, tries to stop him even from attending one’s dying bed.  The Squire, though secretly interested to fervour, is of course a respectable man.  He is a ‘stay’ to country morality, and his wife is a pair of stays.  The neighbours respond in their dozens to the mot d’ordre, and there one is plantee, like a lonely white moon encircled by a halo of angry fire.  Dear acquaintance, I’ve tried it.  Egypt—­Omaha—­anything would be better.  What are you eating?  Have one of these little cakes.  They really are good.  I ordered them specially for you and our small festivity.”

She was smiling as she handed him the plate.

“I should think Egypt would be better!” exclaimed Nigel, with a strength and a vehemence that contrasted almost startlingly with her light, half-laughing tone.  “Why don’t you go there?  Why don’t you try the free life?”

“Live among the tribes, like Lady Hester Stanhope in the Lebanon?  I’m afraid I could never train myself to wear a turban.  Besides, Egypt is fearfully civilized now.  Every one goes there.  I should be cut all up the Nile.”

The brutality of her frankness startled and almost pained him.  For a moment, in it he seemed to discern a lack of taste.

“You are right,” she said; and suddenly the lightness died away altogether from her voice.  “But how is one not to get blunted?  And even long ago I always hated pretence.  Women are generally pretending.  And they are wise.  I have never been wise.  If I were wise, I should not let you see my lonely, stupid, undignified situation.”

Suddenly she turned so that the light from the window fell full upon her, and lifted her veil up over the brim of her hat.

“Nor my face, upon which, of course, must be written all sorts of worries and sorrows.  But I couldn’t pretend at eighteen, nor can I at thirty-eight.  No wonder so many men—­the kind of men you meet at your club, at the Marlborough, or the Bachelors’, or the Travellers’—­call me an ‘ass of a woman.’  I am an ass of a woman, a little—­little—­ass.”

In saying the very last words all the severity slipped away out of her voice, and as she smiled again and moved her head, emphasizing humorously her own reproach to herself, she looked almost a girl.

“The ‘little’ applies to my mind, of course, not to my body; or perhaps I ought to say to my soul, instead of to my body.”

“No, ‘little’ would be the wrong adjective for your soul,” Nigel said.

Mrs. Chepstow looked touched, and turned once more away from the light, after Nigel had noticed that she looked touched.