When summoned by his wife, he came in with a wrinkle between his straight brows; he had just finished a morning’s work on a drainage scheme, like the really good fellow that he was.  She greeted him with a little special smile.  Nothing could be friendlier than the relations between these two.  Affection and trust, undeviating undemonstrativeness, identity of feeling as to religion, children, property; and, in regard to views on the question of sex, a really strange unanimity, considering that they were man and woman.

“It’s about these Gaunts, Gerald.  I feel they must go at once.  They’re only creating bad feeling by staying till quarter day.  I have had the young Freelands here.”

“Those young pups!”

“Can’t it be managed?”

Malloring did not answer hastily.  He had that best point of the good Englishman, a dislike to being moved out of a course of conduct by anything save the appeal of his own conscience.

“I don’t know,” he said, “why we should alter what we thought was just.  Must give him time to look round and get a job elsewhere.”

“I think the general state of feeling demands it.  It’s not fair to the villagers to let the Freelands have such a handle for agitating.  Labor’s badly wanted everywhere; he can’t have any difficulty in getting a place, if he likes.”

“No.  Only, I rather admire the fellow for sticking by his girl, though he is such a ‘land-lawyer.’  I think it’s a bit harsh to move him suddenly.”

“So did I, till I saw from those young furies what harm it’s doing.  They really do infect the cottagers.  You know how discontent spreads.  And Tryst—­they’re egging him on, too.”

Malloring very thoughtfully filled a pipe.  He was not an alarmist; if anything, he erred on the side of not being alarmed until it was all over and there was no longer anything to be alarmed at!  His imagination would then sometimes take fire, and he would say that such and such, or so and so, was dangerous.

“I’d rather go and have a talk with Freeland,” he said.  “He’s queer, but he’s not at all a bad chap.”

Lady Malloring rose, and took one of his real-leather buttons in her hand.

“My dear Gerald, Mr. Freeland doesn’t exist.”

“Don’t know about that; a man can always come to life, if he likes, in his own family.”

Lady Malloring was silent.  It was true.  For all their unanimity of thought and feeling, for all the latitude she had in domestic and village affairs, Gerald had a habit of filling his pipe with her decisions.  Quite honestly, she had no objection to their becoming smoke through his lips, though she might wriggle just a little.  To her credit, she did entirely carry out in her life her professed belief that husbands should be the forefronts of their wives.  For all that, there burst from her lips the words: 

“That Freeland woman!  When I think of the mischief she’s always done here, by her example and her irreligion—­I can’t forgive her.  I don’t believe you’ll make any impression on Mr. Freeland; he’s entirely under her thumb.”