remained to bear witness at once to
the domestic economies and the decorative ideas of old Robert
Boyce--conscious also of the figures on either side of her, and of her
own quick-beating youth betwixt them. She was sore and unhappy; yet, on
the whole, what she was thinking most about was Aldous Raeburn. What had
he said to Lord Maxwell?--and to the Winterbournes? She wished she could
know. She wished with leaping pulse that she could see him again
quickly. Yet it would be awkward too.

* * * * *

Presently she got up and went away to take off her things. As the door
closed behind her, Mrs. Boyce held out Miss Raeburn's note, which
Marcella had returned to her, to her husband.

"They have asked Marcella and me to lunch," she said. "I am not going,
but I shall send her."

He read the note by the firelight, and it produced the most
contradictory effects upon him.

"Why don't you go?" he asked her aggressively, rousing himself for a
moment to attack her, and so vent some of his ill-humour.

"I have lost the habit of going out," she said quietly, "and am too old
to begin again."

"What! you mean to say," he asked her angrily, raising his voice, "that
you have never _meant_ to do your duties here--the duties of your
position?"

"I did not foresee many, outside this house and land. Why should we
change our ways? We have done very well of late. I have no mind to risk
what I have got."

He glanced round at her in a quick nervous way, and then looked back
again at the fire. The sight of her delicate blanched face had in some
respects a more and more poignant power with him as the years went on.
His anger sank into moroseness.

"Then why do you let Marcella go? What good will it do her to go about
without her parents? People will only despise her for a girl of no
spirit--as they ought."

"It depends upon how it is done. I can arrange it, I think," said Mrs.
Boyce. "A woman has always convenient limitations to plead in the way of
health. She need never give offence if she has decent wits. It will be
understood that I do not go out, and then someone--Miss Raeburn or Lady
Winterbourne--will take up Marcella and mother her."

She spoke with her usual light gentleness, but he was not appeased.

"If you were to talk of _my_ health, it would be more to the purpose,"
he said, with grim inconsequence. And raising his heavy lids he looked
at her full.

She got up and went over to him.

"D