was, he had sometimes been amused to
note old Mr. Conyers's bewilderment when a cabinet minister or a duchess
manifested their pleasurable excitement in meeting him. As for
Gwendolen, her essential loyalty and kindness had always remained the
same since the days when she had protected him from the sallies of her
boisterous brothers and sisters in the Kensington family mansion--the
same till now. Last night and to-day he had recognised a difference. He
wondered whether he was a conceited fool for imagining in Gwendolen a
dwelling tenderness, a brooding touch, indeed, of reminiscent
wistfulness. Was it to show an unbecoming complacency if he allowed his
mind to dwell upon the possibilities that this development in Gwendolen
presented to his imagination? He was delicate and poor and, despite a
large visiting-list, he was lonely. He was fond of Gwendolen and of her
two nice, dull boys. She amused him, it was true, as she had always
amused him; for though her drawing-room had become interesting, though
she had developed a sense of humour, or at least the intention of
humorousness, though she often attempted playfulness and even irony, she
was still at heart as disproportionately earnest as she had been in
youth. But Gwendolen would make no romantic demands upon him, and she
would not expect him to take even red lacquer as seriously as she did,
or to follow with the same breathlessness the erratic movements of
modern aestheticism. She was accustomed to his passive unresponsiveness,
and would resent it no more in the husband than in the friend.
Altogether, as he sat there writing at Gwendolen's lovely bureau, he
knew that a sense of homely magic grew upon him.

Next morning, wandering about the pleasant streets of the old town, he
found himself before the window of Mr. Glazebrook's curiosity-shop--a
shop well known to more than Chislebridge. He paused to look at the
objects disposed with a dignified reticence against a dark background,
and his eye was attracted by a very delightful red lacquer box that at
once made him think of Gwendolen's drawing-room. Just the thing for her,
it was. But as he entered the shop, Mr. Glazebrook leaned from within
and took it from its place in the window. He was showing it to another
customer.

Owen now quite vehemently longed to possess the box, which, he saw, as
Mr. Glazebrook displayed it, was cunningly fitted with little inner
segments, beautifully patterned in gold. Feigning an indifferent