“Are you busy?” she enquired—­“May I come in?”

He rose, with the stately old-fashioned courtesy habitual to him.

“By all means come in!” he said—­“You have returned early?”

“Yes.”  She loosened her rich evening cloak, lined with ermine, and let it fall on the back of the chair in which she seated herself—­ “It was a boresome affair,—­there were recitations and music which I hate—­so I came away.  You are reading?”

“Not now”—­and he closed the volume on the table beside him—­“But I have been reading—­that amazing book by the young girl we met at the Deanshires’ last night—­Ena Armitage.  It’s really a fine piece of work.”

She was silent.

“You didn’t take to her, I’m afraid?” he went on—­“Yet she seemed a charming, modest little person.  Perhaps she was not quite what you expected?”

Lady Blythe gave a sudden harsh laugh.

“You are right!  She certainly was not what I expected!  Is the door well shut?”

Surprised at her look and manner, he went to see.

“The door is quite closed,” he said, rather stiffly.  “One would think we were talking secrets—­and we never do!”

“No!” she rejoined, looking at him curiously—­“We never do.  We are model husband and wife, having nothing to conceal!”

He took up his cigar which he had laid down for a minute, and with careful minuteness flicked off the ash.

“You have something to tell me,” he remarked, quietly—­“Pray go on, and don’t let me interrupt you.  Do you object to my smoking?”

“Not in the least.”

He stood with his back to the fireplace, a tall, stately figure of a man, and looked at her expectantly,—­she meanwhile reclined in a cushioned chair with the folds of her ermine falling about her, like a queen of languorous luxury.

“I suppose,” she began—­“hardly anything in the social life of our day would very much surprise or shock you—?”

“Very little, certainly!” he answered, smiling coldly—­“I have lived a long time, and am not easily surprised!”

“Not even if it concerned some one you know?”

His fine open brow knitted itself in a momentary line of puzzled consideration.

“Some one I know?” he repeated—­“Well, I should certainly be very sorry to hear anything of a scandalous nature connected with the girl we saw last night—­she looked too young and too innocent—­”

“Innocent—­oh yes!” and Lady Blythe again laughed that harsh laugh of suppressed hysterical excitement—­“She is innocent enough!”

“Pardon!  I thought you were about to speak of her, as you said she was not what you expected—­”

He paused,—­startled by the haggard and desperate expression of her face.

“Richard,” she said—­“You are a good man, and you hold very strong opinions about truth and honour and all that sort of thing.  I don’t believe you could ever understand badness—­real, downright badness—­could you?”