when I hear it."

Hester answered with a shrill little laugh.

"Her big feet are a better shape than mine," she said. "I ought to hate
her, and I would if I could, but I can't."

"I can," muttered Osborn between his teeth as he turned to the mantel
and scratched a match to light his pipe.

Chapter Twelve

When Lord Walderhurst took his departure for India, his wife began to
order her daily existence as he had imagined she would. Before he had
left her she had appeared at the first Drawing-room, and had spent a few
weeks at the town house, where they had given several imposing and
serious dinner parties, more remarkable for dignity and good taste than
liveliness. The duties of social existence in town would have been
unbearable for Emily without her husband. Dressed by Jane Cupp with a
passion of fervour, fine folds sweeping from her small, long waist,
diamonds strung round her neck, and a tiara or a big star in her full
brown hair, Emily was rather superb when supported by the consciousness
that Walderhurst's well-carried maturity and long accustomedness were
near her. With him she could enjoy even the unlively splendour of a
function, but without him she would have been very unhappy. At Palstrey
she was ceasing to feel new, and had begun to realise that she belonged
to the world she lived in. She was becoming accustomed to her
surroundings, and enjoyed them to the utmost. Her easily roused
affections were warmed by the patriarchal atmosphere of village life.
Most of the Palstrey villagers had touched their forelocks or curtsied
to Walderhursts for generations. Emily liked to remember this, and had
at once conceived a fondness for the simple folk, who seemed somehow
related so closely to the man she worshipped.

Walderhurst had not the faintest conception of what this worship
represented. He did not even reach the length of realising its
existence. He saw her ingenuous reverence for and belief in him, and was
naturally rather pleased by them. He was also vaguely aware that if she
had been a more brilliant woman she would have been a more exacting one,
and less easily impressed. If she had been a stupid woman or a clumsy
one, he would have detested her and bitterly regretted his marriage. But
she was only innocent and gratefully admiring, which qualities,
combining themselves with good looks, good health, and good manners,
made of a woman something he liked immensely. Really she had looked very
nice and at