“Upstairs, I believe.  She and I have nearly quarrelled to-day.”

“What about?”

“About her marriage.  I declare, William, I have no patience with her.”

Mr. Bellairs laughed.  “An old complaint, my dear; but why?”

“She is so matter-of-fact.  I asked her, at last, what she was going to marry for, and she told me coolly, for convenience.”

Mrs. Bellairs’ indignation made her husband laugh still more.  “They are well matched,” he said; “Morton is as cool as she is.  He might be Bluebeard proposing for his thirteenth wife.”

“Well, you may like it, but I don’t.  If they care so little about each other now, what will they do when they have been married as long as we have?”

“My dear Elise, you and I were born too soon. We never thought of marrying for convenience; but as our ideas on the subject don’t seem to have changed much in ten years, perhaps theirs may not do so either.  By the way, where’s Percy?”

“That’s another thing.  I don’t want to be inhospitable to your cousin, but I do wish with all my heart that he was back in England.”

Mr. Bellairs threw his magazine on the table.  “Why, what on earth is the matter with him?”

“Do you know where he spends half his time?”

“Not I. To tell the truth, his listless, dawdling way rather provokes me, and I have not been sorry to see less of him lately.”

“He goes to the Cottage every day.”

“Does he?  I should not have thought that an amusement much in his way.”

“You say yourself that Lucia is a wonderfully pretty girl.”

“Lucia?  She is a child.  You don’t think that attracts him?”

Mrs. Bellairs was silent.

“Elise, don’t be absurd.  You women are always fancying things of that kind.  A fellow like Percy is not so easily caught.”

“I hope to goodness I am only fancying, but I believe you would give Mrs. Costello credit for some sense, and she is certainly uneasy.”

“Does she say so?”

“No.  But I know it; and Maurice and Lucia are not the same friends they used to be.”

“Lucia must be an idiot if she can prefer Percy to Maurice; but most girls do seem to be idiots.”

“In the meantime, what to do?  I feel as if we were to blame.”

“We can’t very well turn out my honourable cousin.  I suspect the best thing to do is to leave them alone. He will not forget to take care of himself.”

“He?  No fear.  But it is of her I think.  I should be sorry to see her married to him, even if the Earl would consent.”

“It will never come to that.  And, after all, you may be mistaken in supposing there is anything more than a little flirtation.”

Mrs. Bellairs shook her head, but said no more.  She knew by experience that her husband would remember what he had heard, and take pains to satisfy himself as to the cause of her anxiety.  She had also (after ten years of wedlock!) implicit faith in his power to do something, she did not know what, to remedy whatever was wrong.