only once had he a gleam of light.  It was at one of those assembly dances, which afford the only outlet to the passions of the population of seaside watering-places.  He was sitting with her in an embrasure, his senses tingling with the contact of the waltz.  She had looked at him over her, slowly waving fan; and he had lost his head.  Seizing that moving wrist, he pressed his lips to the flesh of her arm.  And she had shuddered—­to this day he had not forgotten that shudder—­nor the look so passionately averse she had given him.

A year after that she had yielded.  What had made her yield he could never make out; and from Mrs. Heron, a woman of some diplomatic talent, he learnt nothing.  Once after they were married he asked her, “What made you refuse me so often?” She had answered by a strange silence.  An enigma to him from the day that he first saw her, she was an enigma to him still....

Bosinney was waiting for him at the door; and on his rugged, good-looking, face was a queer, yearning, yet happy look, as though he too saw a promise of bliss in the spring sky, sniffed a coming happiness in the spring air.  Soames looked at him waiting there.  What was the matter with the fellow that he looked so happy?  What was he waiting for with that smile on his lips and in his eyes?  Soames could not see that for which Bosinney was waiting as he stood there drinking in the flower-scented wind.  And once more he felt baffled in the presence of this man whom by habit he despised.  He hastened on to the house.

“The only colour for those tiles,” he heard Bosinney say,—­“is ruby with a grey tint in the stuff, to give a transparent effect.  I should like Irene’s opinion.  I’m ordering the purple leather curtains for the doorway of this court; and if you distemper the drawing-room ivory cream over paper, you’ll get an illusive look.  You want to aim all through the decorations at what I call charm.”

Soames said:  “You mean that my wife has charm!”

Bosinney evaded the question.

“You should have a clump of iris plants in the centre of that court.”

Soames smiled superciliously.

“I’ll look into Beech’s some time,” he said, “and see what’s appropriate!”

They found little else to say to each other, but on the way to the Station Soames asked: 

“I suppose you find Irene very artistic.”

“Yes.”  The abrupt answer was as distinct a snub as saying:  “If you want to discuss her you can do it with someone else!”

And the slow, sulky anger Soames had felt all the afternoon burned the brighter within him.

Neither spoke again till they were close to the Station, then Soames asked: 

“When do you expect to have finished?”

“By the end of June, if you really wish me to decorate as well.”

Soames nodded.  “But you quite understand,” he said, “that the house is costing me a lot beyond what I contemplated.  I may as well tell you that I should have thrown it up, only I’m not in the habit of giving up what I’ve set my mind on.”