I suppose."

"We did."

"Nice lad."

To this Augustine said nothing.

"They're such a solemn lot, the youths of this generation," said Sir
Hugh, addressing Amabel as well as Augustine: "In my day we never
bothered ourselves much about things: at least the ones I knew didn't.
Awfully empty and frivolous. Augustine and his friends would have
thought us. Where we used to talk about race horses they talk about the
Absolute,--eh, Augustine? We used to go and hear comic-operas and they
go and hear Brahms. I suppose you do go and hear Brahms, Augustine?"

Augustine maintained his silence as though not conceiving that the
sportive question required an answer and Amabel said for him that he was
very fond of Brahms.

"Well, I must be off," said Sir Hugh. "I hope your heart will ache ever
so little for me, Amabel, when you think of the night you've turned me
out into."

"Oh--but--I don't turn, you out,"--she stammered, rising, as, in a gay
farewell, he looked at her.

"No? Well, I'm only teasing. I could hardly have managed to stay this
time--though,--I might have managed, Amabel--. I'll come again soon,
very soon," said Sir Hugh.

"No," her hand was in his and she knew that Augustine had turned his
head and was looking at them:--"No, dear Hugh. Not soon, please. I will
write." Sir Hugh looked at her smiling. He glanced at Augustine; then
back at her, rallying her, affectionately, threateningly, determinedly,
for her foolish feints. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.
"Write, if you want to; but I'm coming," he said. He nodded to Augustine
and left the room.

IX

It was, curiously enough, a crippling awkwardness and embarrassment that
Amabel felt rather than fear or antagonism, during that evening and the
morning that followed. Augustine had left the room directly after Sir
Hugh's departure. When she saw him again he showed her a face resolutely
mute. It was impossible to speak to him; to explain. The main facts he
must see; that her husband was making love to her and that, however deep
her love for him, she rejected him.

Augustine might believe that rejection to be for his own sake, might
believe that she renounced love and sacrificed herself from a maternal
sense of duty; and, indeed, the impossibility of bringing that love into
her life with Augustine had been the clear impossibility that had
flashed for her in her need; she had seized upon it and it had armed her
in her reiterated refusal. B