As he thought about it all a cloud began to settle over his face. Lady
Holme saw it and said:

"That depends on you, Fritz."

She nestled against him, put her hand over his, and kept on lifting his
hand softly and then letting it fall on his knee, as she went on:

"That all depends on you."

"How?"

He began to look at her hand and his, following their movements almost
like a child.

"If we are all right together, obviously all right, very, very
par-ti-cu-lar-ly all right--voyez vous, mon petit chou?--they will think
nothing of it. 'Poor Mr. Carey! What a pity the Duke's champagne is so
good!' That's what they'll say. But if we--you and I--are not on
perfect terms, if you behave like a bear that's been sitting on a wasps'
nest--why then they'll say--they'll say--"

"What'll they say?"

"They'll say, 'That was really a most painful scene at the Duke's. She's
evidently been behaving quite abominably. Those yellow women always
bring about all the tragedies--'"

"Yellow women!" Lord Holme ejaculated.

He looked hard at his wife. It was evident that his mind was tacking.

"Miss Schley heard what you said to the feller," he added.

"People who never speak hear everything--naturally."

"How d'you mean--never speak? Why, she's full of talk."

"How well she listened to him!" was Lady Holme's mental comment.

"If half the world heard it doesn't matter if you and I choose it
shouldn't. Unless--"

"Unless what?"

"Unless you did anything last night--afterwards--that will make a
scandal?"

"Ah!"

"Did you?"

"That's all right."

He applied himself with energy to the toast. Lady Holme recognised, with
a chagrin which she concealed, that Lord Holme was not going to allow
himself to be "managed" into any revelation. She recognised it so
thoroughly that she left the subject at once.

"We'd better forgive and forget," she said. "After all, we are married
and I suppose we must stick together."

There was a clever note of regret in her voice.

"Are you sorry?" Lord Holme said, with a manner that suggested a
readiness to be surly.

"For what?"

"That we're married?"

She sat calmly considering.

"Am I? Well, I must think. It's so difficult to be sure. I must compare
you with other men--"

"If it comes to that, I might do a bit of comparin' too."

"I should be the last to prevent you, old boy. But I'm sure you've often
done it already and always made up your mind afterwards that she wasn't
quite up