‘And you really live in the bungalow?’ inquired Mrs. Carnaby, disregarding this information about Redgrave’s sister.

’Yes, it’s my headquarters in England.  Let me send you a card, will you, when I have my next afternoon?  It might amuse you, and I assure you it is perfectly respectable.’

‘How could I doubt it, if you invite me?’

Alma drove home by herself in a hansom.  She liked this disregard of conventionalities; all the more because Harvey, who, of course, had sat up for her, seemed a trifle anxious.  Her spirits were exuberant; she gave a merry, mocking account of the evening, but it included no mention of Cyrus Redgrave.

At the end of June her friends the Leaches moved from their old house in Elgin Road to a new one out at Kingsbury-Neasden, and when the removal was completed Alma went there to make a call, taking her husband.  Harvey had never been beyond Swiss Cottage on this extension of the Metropolitan Railway; he looked with interest at the new districts springing up towards Harrow, and talked of them with Mrs. Leach.  A day or two after, he travelled by himself to a greater distance on the same line, making a survey of the country from Harrow to Aylesbury.  At his next meeting with Hugh Carnaby, which took place about the middle of July, he threw out a suggestion that for anyone who wished to live practically in London and yet away from its frenzy, the uplands towards Buckinghamshire were convenient ground.

‘I wish you were thinking of it yourself,’ replied Hugh.  ’Your wife is about the only woman Sibyl cares to see much of, and the only woman I know that she’ll get any good from.’

The strong man did not look very cheerfully on the world just now, and it was evident that he felt some sort of trouble with regard to his wife.  For her sake solely he had returned to England, where he was less than ever at his ease.  He wished Sibyl to live in her own way, grudged her nothing, admired and cherished her with undiminished fervour; but in Oxford and Cambridge Mansions it cost him a great effort to pretend to be at home.  The years of wandering had put him hopelessly out of touch with what Sibyl called society.  Little as he understood about manufactures, or cared for the details of commerce, he preferred to stay down at Coventry with his partner Mackintosh, living roughly, smoking his pipe and drinking his whisky in the company of men who had at least a savour of sturdy manhood.  His days of sport were gone by; he was risking the solid remnant of his capital; and if it vanished —­ But of that possibility he would not speak, even with Harvey Rolfe.  As he meditated, his teeth were set, his eyes darkened.  And it appeared to Harvey that the good fellow drank a little more whisky than was needful, even in these warm days.

‘I want to see the little chap, my namesake,’ he said.  ’Why don’t you have him up here?  Doesn’t your wife feel she wants him?’