and chatted with Sir David; but a Sunday intervened
and that partly made it up. Mrs. Capadose fortunately did not hunt, and
when his work was over she was not inaccessible. He took a couple of
longish walks with her (she was fond of that), and beguiled her at tea
into a friendly nook in the hall. Regard her as he might he could not
make out to himself that she was consumed by a hidden shame; the sense
of being married to a man whose word had no worth was not, in her
spirit, so far as he could guess, the canker within the rose. Her mind
appeared to have nothing on it but its own placid frankness, and when he
looked into her eyes (deeply, as he occasionally permitted himself to
do), they had no uncomfortable consciousness. He talked to her again and
still again of the dear old days--reminded her of things that he had not
(before this reunion) the least idea that he remembered. Then he spoke
to her of her husband, praised his appearance, his talent for
conversation, professed to have felt a quick friendship for him and
asked (with an inward audacity at which he trembled a little) what
manner of man he was. 'What manner?' said Mrs. Capadose. 'Dear me, how
can one describe one's husband? I like him very much.'

'Ah, you have told me that already!' Lyon exclaimed, with exaggerated
ruefulness.

'Then why do you ask me again?' She added in a moment, as if she were so
happy that she could afford to take pity on him, 'He is everything
that's good and kind. He's a soldier--and a gentleman--and a dear! He
hasn't a fault. And he has great ability.'

'Yes; he strikes one as having great ability. But of course I can't
think him a dear.'

'I don't care what you think him!' said Mrs. Capadose, looking, it
seemed to him, as she smiled, handsomer than he had ever seen her. She
was either deeply cynical or still more deeply impenetrable, and he had
little prospect of winning from her the intimation that he longed
for--some hint that it had come over her that after all she had better
have married a man who was not a by-word for the most contemptible, the
least heroic, of vices. Had she not seen--had she not felt--the smile go
round when her husband executed some especially characteristic
conversational caper? How could a woman of her quality endure that day
after day, year after year, except by her quality's altering? But he
would believe in the alteration only when he should have heard _her_
lie. He was fascinated by his problem and y