It was an odd sensation thus to be regarding one’s husband objectively.  For the first time he appeared to her definitely as a stranger; as much a stranger as the man who came once a week to wind Mrs. Forsythe’s clocks.  Nay, more.  There was a sense of intrusion in this visit, of invasion of a life with which he had nothing to do.  She examined him ruthlessly, very much as one might examine a burglar taken unawares.  There was the inevitable shirt with the wide pink stripes, of the abolishment or even of the effective toning down of which she had long since despaired.  On the contrary, like his complexion, they evinced a continual tendency towards a more aggressive colour.  There was also the jewelled ring, now conspicuously held aloft on a fat little finger.  The stripes appeared that morning as the banner of a hated suzerain, the ring as the emblem of his overlordship.  He did not belong in that house; everything in it cried out for his removal; and yet it was, in the eyes of the law at least, his.  By grace of that fact she was here, enjoying it.  At that instant, as though in evidence of this, he laid down a burning cigarette on a mahogany stand he had had brought out to him.  Honora seized an ash tray, hurried to the porch, and picked up the cigarette in the tips of her fingers.

“Howard, I wish you would be more careful of Mrs. Forsythe’s furniture,” she exclaimed.

“Hello, Honora,” he said, without looking up.  “I see by the Newport paper that old Maitland is back from Europe.  Things are skyrocketing in Wall Street.”  He glanced at the ash tray, which she had pushed towards him.  “What’s the difference about the table?  If the old lady makes a row, I’ll pay for it.”

“Some things are priceless,” she replied; “you do not seem to realize that.”

“Not this rubbish,” said Howard.  “Judging by the fuss she made over the inventory, you’d think it might be worth something.”

“She has trusted us with it,” said Honora.  Her voice shook.

He stared at her.

“I never saw you look like that,” he declared.

“It’s because you never look at me closely,” she answered.

He laughed, and resumed his reading.  She stood awhile by the railing.  Across the way, beyond the wall, she heard Mr. Chamberlin’s shrill voice berating a gardener.

“Howard,” she asked presently, “why do you come to Newport at all?”

“Why do I come to Newport?” he repeated.  “I don’t understand you.”

“Why do you come up here every week?”

“Well,” he said, “it isn’t a bad trip on the boat, and I get a change from New York; and see men I shouldn’t probably see otherwise.”  He paused and looked at her again, doubtfully.  “Why do you ask such a question?”

“I wished to be sure,” said Honora.

“Sure of what?”

“That the-arrangement suited you perfectly.  You do not feel—­the lack of anything, do you?”

“What do you mean?”