ight be too late, she was unable to forbear her new
tenderness.

She stood behind him; her hand fell upon his shoulder, and rested
there, like a leaf. He could not but be conscious of it--he was very
conscious of it, and accepted it, as a tribute. Such a tribute was
gratifying. Lucy was a charming woman. She did pretty things in a
pretty way, as a man's wife should, but too seldom did. How many men's
wives--after fourteen years of it--would stand as she was standing
now? No--the luck held. He had a tradition of Success--success without
visible effort. The luck held! Like a steady wind, filling a sail.

Discipline, however; gentle but firm! He went on reading, but said,
most kindly, "Well, Luce, well--" adding, on an afterthought, "How can
I serve you?"

Her eyes were luminous, dilating her gentle mood, downcast towards his
smooth black hair. She sighed, "Serve me? Oh, you serve me well. I'm
happy just now--that's all."

"Not fretting after the boy?"

"No, no. Not now. Bless him, all the same."

"To be sure." Whereon, at a closer touch of her hand, he looked
comically up. Her head moved, ever so slightly, towards him. He
dropped his eyeglass with a smart click and kissed her cheek. She
shivered, and started back. A blank dismay fell upon her; her heart
seemed to stop. Good Heavens! Not so, not at all so, had James kissed
her in the dark.

There wasn't a doubt about that--not the shade of a doubt. Here had
been a brush on the cheek; here the cold point of his nose had pecked
a little above. She had felt that distinctly, more distinctly than the
touch of his lips. Whereas that other, that full-charged message of
hope and promise--oh, that had been put upon her mouth, soft and
close, and long. She recalled how her head had fallen back and back,
how her laden heart had sighed, how she had been touched, comforted,
contented. Good God, how strange men were! How entirely outside her
philosophy!

She strayed about her drawing-room, touching things here and there,
while he complacently fingered his _Punch_, flacking over the
leaves with brisk slaps of the hand. At this moment he was as
comfortably-minded a householder as any in London, engaged solely in
digestion, at peace at home and abroad, so unconscious of the
fretting, straining, passionate lost soul in the room with him,
hovering, flicking about it like a white moth, as to be supremely
ridiculous--to any one but Lucy. It is difficult to hit off her state
of mind