ood reason."

She raised her eyes to his face a little haughtily.

"But it seems to me you had a good reason."

Lorimer laughed again. It was plain that he was determined not to be
jarred out of his genial mood.

"A good reason; but not one that was very tellable. You really don't
want me saying to a man that I can't eat his dinner because my wife
dislikes him."

Lorimer had no notion that his words could sting his wife, and he was
surprised at her heightened color and at the sudden aggressive poise of
her head. Then swiftly she controlled herself.

"Next time, you can concoct some more specious reason," she answered,
with forced lightness.

In his turn, Lorimer felt himself irritated by her calm feminine
assumption that his acceptance or refusal of invitations in future was
to be bounded by her dislikes.

"Next time, we will hope you will have annulled the reason," he
retorted. "Dudley isn't a bad fellow. Moreover, he has the saving grace
of knowing how to order a good dinner and get together a good crowd."

She felt the half-veiled hostility of his tone, and it cut her. She had
received similar cuts before, during the past three or four months.
Instead of rendering her callous, they had left a sore sensitiveness in
their scars. She battled against the soreness bravely. The Danes were a
race with level nerves, trained by generations of self-control to look
upon moods and lack of breeding as synonymous terms; and Beatrix had had
no conception of the swift alternations of feeling which marked and
marred the temperament of Lorimer. Often as they had been together
during their rather long engagement, he had been able to maintain a
moderately even mood whenever Beatrix was within reach. On one or two
occasions, he had betrayed the fact that he was gloomy and depressed;
but it was not until they came into the every-day and all-day contact
which follows upon the heels of the marriage ceremony that she had
supposed he could be either irritable or petulant. By the time they had
come home from Europe, she was quite aware of both characteristics; yet
they were alternated with hours of passionate devotion, of a tender
chivalry which took away much of their sting. Lorimer loved his wife
loyally; nevertheless, the very traits which most won the admiration of
his better hours, were the first ones to antagonize him when his moments
of irritation were upon him.

If Beatrix had been of the same temper, the danger for the fut