When his wife silently approved this sentiment the colonel picked up Ms paper and resumed his reading.

Pierce’s friends were indeed uniformly indignant, and without exception they maintained their faith in his innocence; most of them, in fact, actually applied themselves to the task of clearing him of Courteau’s charge.  But of the latter the one who applied herself the most thoughtfully, the most seriously, was the Countess Courteau.  Having reasoned that she herself was indirectly responsible for his plight, she set about aiding him in a thoroughly feminine and indirect manner.  It was an unpleasant undertaking; she took it up with intense abhorrence; it required her utmost determination to carry it on.  Her plan had formed itself immediately she had learned what had happened; her meeting with the Count that evening and her unexpected solicitude, her unbidden attention to his injury, were a part of it.  As time went on she assumed an air that amazed the man.  She meekly accepted his reproaches, she submitted to his abuse; cautiously, patiently she paved the way to a reconciliation.

It was by no means easy, for she and Henri had long lived in what was little better than a state of open hostility, and she had been at no pains to conceal the utter disregard and contempt she felt for him.  He, of course, had resented it; her change of demeanor now awoke his suspicion.  He was a vain and shallow person, however; his conceit was thoroughly Latin, and Hilda’s perseverance was in a way rewarded.  Slowly, grudgingly he gave ground before her subtle advances—­they were, in fact, less advances on her part than opportunities for him—­he experienced a feeling of triumph and began to assume a masterful air that was indeed trying to one of her disposition.  Before his friends he boasted that his energetic defense of his honor had worked a marvel in his home; in her presence he made bold to take on a swagger and an authority hitherto unknown.

Hilda stood it, with what cost no one could possibly understand.  In some manner she managed to convey the idea that he dominated her and that she cringed spiritually before him.  She permitted him occasionally to surprise a look of bewilderment, almost of fright, in her eyes, and this tickled the man immensely.  With a fatuous complacency, thoroughly typical, he told himself that she feared and respected him—­was actually falling in love with him all over again.  When he felt the impulse to scout this idea he went to his mirror and examined himself critically, Why not? he asked himself.  He was very pleasing.  Women had always been wax in his hands; he had a personality, an air, an irresistible something that had won him many conquests.  It seemed not unlikely that Hilda had been shocked into a new and keener realization of his many admirable qualities and was ready to make up, if, or when, he graciously chose to permit her.

On the very evening that Colonel Cavendish and his wife were discussing Pierce Phillips’ affair, Courteau, feeling in a particularly jubilant mood, decided to put the matter to a test; therefore he surprised his wife by walking into her room unannounced.