ted Lady Holme with a secret leading towards the improper never
before suspected by them. They remembered the break between the Holmes
and Carey, the strange scene at the Arkell House ball, and began to
whisper many things of Lady Holme, and to turn a tide of pity and of
sympathy upon her husband. On this tide Lord Holme and the American
might be said to float merrily like corks, unabashed in the eye of the
sun. Their intimacy was condoned on all sides as a natural result of
Lady Holme's conduct. Most of that which had been accomplished by
Lord and Lady Holme together after their reconciliation over the first
breakfast was undone. The silent tongue began to wag, and to murmur the
usual platitudes about the poor fellow who could not find sympathy at
home and so was obliged, against his will, to seek for it outside.

All this Lady Holme had foreseen as she sat in her box at the British
Theatre.

The wrong impression of her was enthroned. She had to reckon with it.
This fact, fully recognised by her, made her wish to walk warily where
otherwise her temper might have led her to walk heedlessly. She wanted
to do an unusual thing, to draw her husband's attention to an intimacy
which was concealed from the world--the intimacy between herself and Leo
Ulford.

After her visit to the house in Half Moon Street she began to see a
great deal of Leo Ulford. Carey had been right when he said that they
would get on together. She understood him easily and thoroughly, and
for that very reason he was attracted by her. Men delight to feel that a
woman is understanding them; women that no man can ever understand them.
Under the subtle influence of Lady Holme's complete comprehension of
him, Leo Ulford's nature expanded, stretched itself as his long legs
stretched themselves when his mind was purring. There was not much in
him to reveal, but what there was he revealed, and Lady Holme seemed to
be profoundly interested in the contents of his soul.

But she was not interested in the contents of his soul in public places
on which the world's eye is fixed. She refused to allow Leo to do what
he desired, and assumed an air of almost possessive friendship before
Society. His natural inclination for the blatant was firmly checked
by her. She cared nothing for him really, but her woman's instinct had
divined that he was the type of man most likely to rouse the slumbering
passion of Fritz, if Fritz were led to suspect that she was attracted
to hi