“Why not!  Great heaven, Honoria, do you suppose that I want to see Effie grow up like you, to lead a life of empty pleasure-seeking idleness, and make a god of luxury.  I had rather see her”—­he was going to add, “dead first,” but checked himself and said—­“have to work for her living.  Dress yourself up as much as you like, but leave the child alone.”

Lady Honoria was furious, but she was also a little frightened.  She had never heard her husband speak quite like this before, and there was something underneath his words that she did not quite understand.  Still less did she understand when on the Monday Geoffrey suddenly told her that he had fifty pounds for her to spend as she liked; then accompanied her to a mantle shop, and stood patiently by, smiling coldly while she invested it in lace and embroideries.  Honoria thought that he was making reparation for his sharp words, and so he was, but to himself, and in another sense.  Every time he gave her money in this fashion, Geoffrey felt like a man who has paid off a debt of honour.  She had taunted him again and again with her poverty—­the poverty she said that he had brought her; for every taunt he would heap upon her all those things in which her soul delighted.  He would glut her with wealth as, in her hour of victory, Queen Tomyris glutted dead Cyrus with the blood of men.

It was an odd way of taking a revenge, and one that suited Lady Honoria admirably; but though its victim felt no sting, it gave Geoffrey much secret relief.  Also he was curious; he wished to see if there was any bottom to such a woman’s desire for luxury, if it would not bring satiety with it.  But Lady Honoria was a very bad subject for such an experiment.  She never showed the least sign of being satiated, either with fine things, with pleasures, or with social delights.  They were her natural element, and he might as soon have expected a fish to weary of the water, or an eagle of the rushing air.

The winter wore away and the spring came.  One day, it was in April, Geoffrey, who was a moderate Liberal by persuasion, casually announced at dinner that he was going to stand for Parliament in the Unionist interest.  The representation of one of the few Metropolitan divisions which had then returned a Home Ruler had fallen vacant.  As it chanced he knew the head Unionist whip very well.  They had been friends since they were lads at school together, and this gentleman, having heard Geoffrey make a brilliant speech in court, was suddenly struck with the idea that he was the very man to lead a forlorn hope.

The upshot of it was that Geoffrey was asked if he would stand, and replied that he must have two days to think it over.  What he really wanted the two days for was to enable him to write to Beatrice and receive an answer from her.  He had an almost superstitious faith in her judgment, and did not like to act without it.  After carefully weighing the pros and cons, his own view was that he should do well to stand.