to have sewing meetings here as Mrs Ewart has
at the vicarage: plain sewing from two to four, and then tea and buns.
You would have liked to see me sitting in the evening embroidering wild
roses on tray cloths, and binding shaving-cases with blue ribbon?"

"I would," said Geoffrey sturdily. He did not smile, as he had been
expected to do, but sat grim and grave, refusing to be cajoled.

Esmeralda's anger mounted once more.

"Then I call it stupid and bigoted, and I absolutely disagree. If I'm
to waste my time, I'll waste it in my own way, not in perpetrating
atrocities to disfigure another home. And I hate village sewing
meetings and the dull, ugly frumps who go to them."

Mr Hilliard took up his pen, squared his elbows, and quietly began to
write.

"Geoffrey, can't you answer when I speak to you! I'm not a child to be
cowed and snubbed! I--I hate you when you get into this superior mood!"

Geoffrey lifted his face--was it the strong east light which made it
suddenly appear so lined and worn? There was no anger in his face, only
a very pitiful sadness.

"I am afraid there are many moods in which you `hate' me, Esmeralda."

The look on his face, the sound of the old pet name were too much for
the warm Irish heart. In a moment his wife was on her knees beside him,
holding his hands, pressing them to her lips, stroking them with
caressing fingers.

"Geoff, Geoff, it isn't true; you know it isn't. I always love you, I
always did. You know it is true. I was ready to marry you when I
thought you hadn't a penny. I wanted nothing but yourself."

"I never forget it," said Geoffrey deeply; "I never can. Sometimes--
sometimes I wish it had been true, it might have been better for us
both. `All that riches can buy' has not made a happy woman of you,
Esmeralda." He stroked back the hair from her broad, low brow, looking
with troubled eyes at the fine lines which already marked its surface.
"I can give my wife many treasures, but apparently not the thing she
needs most of all--the happiness which Dick Victor manages to provide
for Bridgie on a few hundreds a year!"

"Bridgie is Bridgie, and I'm myself; we were born different. It's not
fair to compare us, and the advantages are not all on one side. If she
has not had my opportunities, she has escaped the temptations; she might
have grown selfish too. Sometimes I hate money, Geoffrey; it's a
millstone round one's neck."

"No!" Geoffrey squared his shoul