ion. And yet, now and
again, when the rush and ostentation of their new life, with its
monotony of dinners and dances--so little like that which she had
anticipated as the future lot of a painter's wife--had left her
rather weary, a trifle sad, she had thought suddenly of her old
friend Philip Rainham, and the thought had solaced her. There is a
sort of pleasure, even when one is married to the most amiable of
husbands, and is getting quite old--very nearly twenty--in turning
from time to time to a person who has known one in the very shortest
of frocks, and whose intimate connection with chocolates and
"treats" is among one's earliest traditions. She made no contrasts;
and yet when occasionally on one of those afternoons--there seemed
to be so many of them--when she was "at home," when her bright,
large drawing-room was fullest, and she was distracted to find
herself confusing, amidst the clatter of teacups, dear Mrs.
Henderson, who painted wild-flowers so cleverly, with dear Lady
Lorimer, who was going on the stage, she looked up and saw Rainham
hovering in the near distance, or sitting with his teacup balanced
in one long white hand as he turned a politely tolerant ear to the
small talk of a neighbour, she felt strangely rested. Trouble or
confusion might come, she told herself, and how suddenly all these
charming people, who were so surprisingly alike, and whose names
were so exasperatingly different, would disappear. Dear Mrs.
Henderson and dear Lady Lorimer, and that odious Mrs. Dollond--what
was she saying to Dick now which had to be spoken with an air of
such exaggerated intimacy in so discreet an undertone?--how swiftly
they would all be gone, like the snows of last year! Only Philip
Rainham, she was sure, would be there still, a little older,
perhaps, with the air of being a little more tired of things, but
inwardly the same, unalterably loyal and certain. The prospect was
curiously sustaining, the more in that she had no tangible cause of
uneasiness, was an extremely happy woman--it was so that she would
have most frequently described herself--only growing at times a
little weary of the fashionable tread-mill, and the daily routine of
not particularly noble interests which it involved. Catching his
eyes sometimes, as he sat there, looking out idly, indifferently,
upon it all--this success which was the breath of life to
Dick--she found him somewhat admirable; disdainful, fastidious,
reserved--beneath his sur