very poor lookout for a novelist and playwright like myself,
Enid, if every one thought as you do."

And then he got up and walked to meet the General, who was approaching
the tea-table, and, as the two were soon deep in political matters, Enid
presently slipped away unobserved.

She felt vaguely that she had vexed or disappointed her lover; she knew
the tones of his voice well enough to feel sure that in some way she had
said what he did not approve. And yet, on reflection, she could not see
that she had given him legitimate cause of offence. She knew that he did
not agree with her in preferring country to town; or in thinking that
women who sang in public were not quite of her class; but she did not
think that he ought to be angry with her for expressing her views. He
perplexed her very much by his moments of irritation, of coldness, of
absence of mind. At times he was certainly very different. He could be
most tender, though always with the tenderness of a grown man to a
child, of a strong person towards a weak one--and this was a kind of
tenderness which did not satisfy Enid's heart. Sometimes indeed she was
thankful that it was so, feeling as if any great display of affection on
his part would be overwhelming, out of place; but at other times she
felt that his calm kindness was almost an insult to the woman whom he
had asked to be his wife. A little while back she would not have thought
so--she would have been well content with his behavior; but a new factor
had come into her life since her engagement to Hubert Lepel, some new
and agitating consciousness of power had dawned upon her, with a
revelation of faculties and influences to which she had hitherto been a
stranger; and, in presence of these novel emotions and discoveries,
Hubert was weighed in the balance and found wanting.

Meanwhile Hubert was as uncomfortable as a man could well be. He had
always meant to be faithful and tender to Enid--for whom, as he had
said, he would do anything in his power to save her from unhappiness; on
the other hand, he found the task more difficult than he had dreamed. He
had seen her first as a sweet, docile, pliable creature, ready to be
led, ready to be taught, and he had meant to mould her to his will. But,
lo and behold, the girl was not really pliable at all! She had a
distinct character, an individuality of her own, as different from any
ideal of Hubert's as ice from fire. Her inability to appreciate the
artistic side