ed a hardness
in her which I had never observed before. Is it that I have intruded
too much into their family life? Have I come between the husband and the
wife? Goodness knows I have striven with all my little stock of tact to
avoid doing so. And yet I have often felt that my position was a false
one. Perhaps a young man attaches too much importance to a woman's
glances and gestures. He wishes to assign a definite meaning to each,
when they may be only the passing caprice of the moment. Ah, well, I
have nothing to blame myself with; and in any case it will soon be all
over now.

And then I have seen something of the same sort in Cullingworth; but
he is so strange a being that I never attach much importance to his
variations. He glares at me like an angry bull occasionally; and then
when I ask him what is the matter, he growls out, "Oh, nothing!" and
turns on his heel. Then at other times he is so cordial and friendly
that he almost overdoes it, and I find myself wondering whether he is
not acting. It must seem ungracious to you that I should speak so of a
man who has been my benefactor; and it seems so to me also, but still
that IS the impression which he leaves upon me sometimes. It's an
absurd idea, too; for what possible object could his wife and he have
in pretending to be amiable, if they did not really feel so? And yet you
know the feeling that you get when a man smiles with his lips and not
with his eyes.

One day we went to the Central Hotel billiard-room in the evening to
play a match. Our form is just about the same, and we should have bad an
enjoyable game if it had not been for that queer temper of his. He had
been in a sullen humour the whole day, pretending not to hear what
I said to him, or else giving snappy answers, and looking like a
thunder-cloud. I was determined not to have a row, so I took no notice
at all of his continual provocations, which, instead of pacifying him,
seemed to encourage him to become more offensive. At the end of the
match, wanting two to win, I put down the white which was in the jaws of
the pocket. He cried out that this was bad form. I contended that it was
folly to refrain from doing it when one was only two off game, and, on
his continuing to make remarks, I appealed to the marker, who took the
same view as I did. This opposition only increased his anger, and he
suddenly broke out into most violent language, abusing me in unmeasured
terms. I said to him, "If you have anyt