at he stopped there." And so, to it again, in the manner of women,
tireless in speculation about what is not to be understood.

James, restored in tone, was affable, and even considerate, in the
morning. Mabel, studying him with new eyes, had to admire his flawless
surface, though her conviction of the shallow depth of him was
firmlier rooted than before. "He is--he really is--a tremendous
donkey, poor James," she thought to herself as he gave out playful
sarcasms at her expense, and was incisive without loss of urbanity.
Mabel was urgent with her sister to join the party at Peltry when
Urquhart was there. "I do wish you would. He's rather afraid of you, I
think, and that will throw him upon me--which is what is wanted." That
was how she put it.

James, quite the secure, backed her up. "I should go if I were you,"
he said to Lucy from behind the _Morning Post_. "It will do you a
great deal of good. You always choose February to moult in, and you
will have to be feathered down there. Besides, it's evident you can be
useful to Mabel." Lucy went so far as to get out her engagement book,
and to turn up the date, not very seriously. What she found confirmed
her. "I can't," she said; "it's out of the question."

"Why, what is happening?" Mabel must know.

"It's an Opera night," said Lucy. "The _Walkuere_ is happening."

"Oh, are they? H'm. Yes, I suppose I can't expect you."

Lucy was scornfully clear. "I should think not indeed. Not for a
wilderness of Urquharts!"

"Not all the peltry of Siberia--" said James, rather sharply, as he
thought; and dismissed the subject in favour of his own neatly-spatted
foot. "Wagner!" he said. "I am free to confess that, apart from the
glory of the thing, I had rather--"

"Marry one of Mr. Urquhart's wives," said the hardy Mabel.

"Two," said James, quite ready for her.

Mabel rattled away to her Essex and left her sister all the better for
the astringent she had imparted. Lucy did not agree with her by any
means; it made her hot with annoyance to realise that anybody could so
think of James. At the same time she felt that she must steady
herself. After all, a man might kiss his wife if he pleased, and he
might do it how he pleased. It was undignified to speculate about it.
She tried very hard to drive that home to herself, and she did succeed
in imposing it upon her conduct. But she was not convinced. She was
too deeply romantic for conviction by any such specious reasoning.
That