place here.'

Rosamund ahemed. 'France, Nevil? I should hardly think that France would
please you, in the present state of things over there.'

Half cynically, with great satisfaction, she had watched him fretting
at the savoury morsels of her pie with a fork like a sparrow-beak
during the monologue that would have been so dreary to her but for her
appreciation of the wholesome effect of the letting off of steam, and
her admiration of the fire of his eyes. After finishing his plate he had
less the look of a ship driving on to reef--some of his images of the
country. He called for claret and water, sighing as he munched bread in
vast portions, evidently conceiving that to eat unbuttered bread was to
abstain from luxury. He praised passingly the quality of the bread. It
came from Steynham, and so did the milk and cream, the butter, chicken
and eggs. He was good enough not to object to the expenditure upon the
transmission of the accustomed dainties. Altogether the gradual act of
nibbling had conduced to his eating remarkably well-royally. Rosamund's
more than half-cynical ideas of men, and her custom of wringing
unanimous verdicts from a jury of temporary impressions, inclined her to
imagine him a lover that had not to be so very much condoled with, and
a politician less alarming in practice than in theory:--somewhat a
gentleman of domestic tirades on politics: as it is observed of your
generous young Radical of birth and fortune, that he will become on the
old high road to a round Conservatism.

He pitched one of the morning papers to the floor in disorderly sheets,
muttering: 'So they're at me!'

'Is Dr. Shrapnel better?' she asked. 'I hold to a good appetite as a
sign of a man's recovery.'

Beauchamp was confronting the fog at the window. He swung round: 'Dr.
Shrapnel is better. He has a particularly clever young female cook.'

'Ah! then...'

'Yes, then, naturally! He would naturally hasten to recover to partake
of the viands, ma'am.'

Rosamund murmured of her gladness that he should be able to enjoy them.

'Oddly enough, he is not an eater of meat,' said Beauchamp.

'A vegetarian!'

'I beg you not to mention the fact to my lord. You see, you yourself can
scarcely pardon it. He does not exclude flesh from his table. Blackburn
Tuckham dined there once. "You are a thorough revolutionist, Dr.
Shrapnel," he observed. The doctor does not exclude wine, but he does
not drink it. Poor Tuckham went away entirely o