rent insolent
indifference, as she treated him.

He made a firm resolve once again, he would not speak to her at all, any
more than he had done the last three days in Paris. He would accept the
position until the Wrayth rejoicings were over, and then he would
certainly make arrangements to go and shoot lions, or travel, or
something. There should be no further "perhaps" about it. Life, with the
agonizing longing for her, seeing her daily and being denied, was more
than could be borne.

There was something about Zara's type, the white, exquisite beauty of
her skin, her slenderly voluptuous shape, the stormy suggestion of
hidden passion in her slumberous eyes, which had always aroused
absolutely mad emotions in men. Tristram, who was a normal Englishman,
self-contained and reserved, and too completely healthy to be
highly-strung, felt undreamed-of sensations rise in him when he looked
at her, which was as rarely as possible. He understood now what was
meant by an obsession--all the states of love he had read of in French
novels and dismissed as "tommyrot." She did not only affect him with a
thrilling physical passion. It was an obsession of the mind as well. He
suffered acutely; as each day passed it seemed as if he could not bear
any more, and the next always brought some further pain.

They had actually only been married for ten days! and it seemed an
eternity of anguish to both of them, for different reasons.

Zara's nature was trying to break through the iron bands of her life
training. Once she had admitted to herself that she loved her husband,
her suffering was as deep as his, only that she was more practiced in
the art of suppressing all emotion. But it was no wonder that they both
looked pale and stern, and quite unbridal.

The sportsmen started immediately after lunch again, and the ladies
returned to their delightful work; and, when they all assembled for tea,
everything was almost completed. Zara had been unable to resist the
current of light-hearted gayety which was in the air, and now felt
considerably better; so she allowed Lord Elterton to sit beside her
after tea and pour homage at her feet, with the expression of an empress
listening to an address of loyalty from some distant colony; and the
Crow leant back in his chair and chuckled to himself, much to Lady
Anningford's annoyance.

"What in the world is it, Crow?" she said. "When you laugh like that, I
always know some diabolically cynical idea is