“I’ll let you know when it stops shooting up the garage and consents to move out,” he said.  “I’ll take you down to Quicksands in it.”

The prospective arrival of Mr. Brent’s French motor car, which was looked for daily, had indeed been one of the chief topics of conversation at Quicksands that summer.  He could appear at no lunch or dinner party without being subjected to a shower of questions as to where it was, and as many as half a dozen different women among whom was Mrs. Chandos —­declared that he had promised to bring them out from New York on the occasion of its triumphal entry into the colony.  Honora, needless to say, had betrayed no curiosity.

Neither Mr. Shorter nor Mr. Cuthbert had appeared at the real estate office when, at a little after nine o’clock; Honora asked for the keys.  And an office boy, perched on the box seat of the carriage, drove with them to the house and opened the wrought-iron gate that guarded the entrance, and the massive front door.  Honora had a sense of unreality as they entered, and told herself it was obviously ridiculous that she should aspire to such a dwelling.  Yesterday, under the spell of that somewhat adventurous excursion with Mr. Cuthbert, she had pictured herself as installed.  He had contrived somehow to give her a sense of intimacy with the people who lived thereabout—­his own friends.

Perhaps it was her husband who was the disillusionizing note as he stood on the polished floor of the sunflooded drawing-room.  Although bare of furniture, it was eloquent to Honora of a kind of taste not to be found at Quicksands:  it carried her back, by undiscernible channels of thought, to the impression which, in her childhood, the Hanbury mansion had always made.  Howard, in her present whimsical fancy, even seemed a little grotesque in such a setting.  His inevitable pink shirt and obviously prosperous clothes made discord there, and she knew in this moment that he was appraising the house from a commercial standpoint.  His comment confirmed her guess.

“If I were starting out to blow myself, or you, Honora,” he said, poking with his stick a marmouset of the carved stone mantel, “I’d get a little more for my money while I was about it.”

Honora did not reply.  She looked out of the window instead.

“See here, old man,” said Trixton Brent, “I’m not a real estate dealer or an architect, but if I were in your place I’d take that carriage and hustle over to Jerry Shorter’s as fast as I could and sign the lease.”

Howard looked at him in some surprise, as one who had learned that Trixton Brent’s opinions were usually worth listening to.  Characteristically, he did not like to display his ignorance.

“I know what you mean, Brent,” he replied, “and there may be something to the argument.  It gives an idea of conservativeness and prosperity.”

“You’ve made a bull’s-eye,” said Trixton Brent, succinctly.

“But—­but I’m not ready to begin on this scale,” objected Howard.