Oliver Germaine walked with long, even strides from the Marble Arch to Grosvenor Gate. It was Sunday morning, early in July, and the comparatively deserted portion of the Park which he had chosen was, even so, full of walkers. A good many people, men as well as women, looked at him pleasantly as he went by, for the young man was an attractive, even an arresting personality to the type of person who takes part in Church Parade.

Germaine was tall, slim, dark, so blessed by fate in the mere matter of eyes, nose and mouth, that his looks were often commented on when his wife's beauty was mentioned.

So it was that, as he walked quickly by, a rather vexed expression on his handsome face, almost every man who saw him envied him—if not his looks then his clothes, if not his clothes then his air of being young, healthy, and, to use an ugly modern phrase, in perfect condition.

A nursemaid who watched him pass to and fro several times told herself, rather wistfully, that he was waiting for a loved one, and that the lady, as is the way with loved ones, was late.

The nursemaid was right in one sense, wrong in another. Oliver Germaine was waiting for a lady, but the lady was his married sister. Her name was Fanny Burdon, and her home was in Shropshire. Germaine had a loved one, but she was already his wife, his beautiful, clever Bella, with whom he would so much rather have been now, sitting in their pretty house in West Chapel Street than waiting in the Park for his sister Fanny.

It was really too bad of Fanny to be late! The more so that she would certainly feel aggrieved if, when she did come, her brother made her go straight home with him, instead of taking her down into the crowd of people who were now seething round the Achilles statue. But if Fanny didn't come at once, go home they must, for Bella wouldn't like them to be late—quite a number of people were coming to lunch.

Germaine did not quite know whom, among their crowds of friends, Bella had asked to come in to-day. But certain people, four or five perhaps, would assuredly be there—Mrs. Slade, Bella's great "pal," a nice pretty little woman, with big appealing eyes; also Jenny and Paul Arabin, distant relations of his wife, and once the young couple's only link with the exclusive world of which they now formed so intimate a part.

Then there would be Uvedale.

Germaine's mind dwelt on Uvedale. Bob Uvedale was one of his wife's admirers—in fact Uvedale made no secret of his infatuation for the beautiful Mrs. Germaine, but he was a good fellow, and never made either Bella or himself ridiculous.

Oliver Germaine had remained very simple at heart. He felt sure that Bella could take care of herself; she always behaved with extraordinary prudence and sense,—in fact Oliver was now far less jealous of Bella than he had been in the old days, before she had blossomed into a famous beauty. She was then rather fond of flirting—but her husband had proved the truth of the comfortable old adage concerning safety in numbers. Bella now simply had no time for flirtation! There was no necessity for her to exert herself, she had only to sit still and be admired and adored,—adored, that is, in platonic fashion, admired as you admire a work of art.

Another man who would certainly be lunching with them to-day was Peter Joliffe.

Joliffe was a clever, quaint fellow, whose mission in life was to make people laugh by saying funny things in a serious tone. Joliffe was always fluttering round Bella. He had established himself as a tame cat about the house, and he had, as a matter of fact, been very useful to the young couple, piloting Bella when she was only "the new beauty" amid social quicksands and shallows of which she naturally knew nothing.

Nay, more, Peter Joliffe had introduced the Germaines to some of the very nicest people they knew,—old-fashioned, well-established people, delightful old ladies who called Bella "My pretty dear," courtly old gentlemen who paid her charmingly-turned compliments. Yes, it was nice to think Joliffe would be there to-day; he always helped to make a party go off well.

As for Oliver's sister, Fanny, she would have to sit next Henry Buck. For a brief moment Germaine considered Henry Buck,—Buck who was always called "Rabbit" behind his back, and sometimes to his face.

Germaine hardly knew how it was that they had come to know poor old Rabbit so well. They had met him soon after they were married, and ever since he had stuck to them both with almost pathetic insistence. Oddly enough, he, Oliver, did not reciprocate Henry Buck's feelings of admiring friendship. It was not that he disliked the man, but he had a sort of physical antipathy to him.

The only interesting thing about Henry Buck was his wealth. But then to many people that made him very interesting, for he was really immensely rich, and one of those rather uncommon people, who don't know how to spend their money! Poor Rabbit had been educated at home by a foolish, widowed mother, who had been afraid of letting him play rough games. This was perhaps why he was so dull and awkward—not quite like other people.

Germaine felt rather sorry that Henry Buck would certainly be there to-day. Considering how very little he did for them—no, that was a beastly thing to say, even to oneself!—but considering how very unornamental and uninteresting poor old Rabbit was, it was really very nice of Bella to be so kind to him. She never seemed to mind his being there, and she had even managed to force his company on certain people whose one object in life was to avoid a bore, and who didn't care a button whether a man was a pauper or a millionaire.

Of course Germaine guessed what had happened to Fanny. She had almost certainly gone to hear some fashionable preacher—for Fanny was the sort of woman who likes to cram everything into a visit to London. She was disappointed if every waking hour did not bring with it some new sensation, some new amusement, and this was odd—or so her simple-hearted brother told himself—because all the rest of the year Fanny was content to lead the dull, stodgy life of a small Shropshire squire's wife.

Oliver's irritation increased. It was foolish of Fanny to have come to London just now, in the middle of the season! Hitherto, she and her husband had always come up for a fortnight just before Christmas, and then perhaps again just before Easter. Now she had come up alone, and settled herself into dull lodgings in Marylebone; and then—well, the young man was vaguely aware that Fanny's visit to town was really a scouting expedition. She evidently wanted to see for herself how her brother Oliver and his beautiful wife were "getting on."

Strange to say, Fanny was not quite pleased at Bella's sudden social success—not pleased, and yet quite willing to profit by it. How queer that was! How queer, for the matter of that, most women were! But Bella was not queer—in fact, Bella had been most awfully nice about Fanny, and had never allowed her to suspect, even by as much as a look, that her presence was not welcome. Yet Fanny naturally proved "odd man out" at all those little gatherings to which her lovely sister-in-law made her so carelessly welcome. Fanny knew nothing of the delightful world in which Oliver and Bella now moved; she was quite convinced that she belonged to the very best, exclusive set, and so she did—in Shropshire. But here in town? Why, she was even ignorant of the new social shibboleths; all her notions as to what it was the right thing to do, or to avoid doing, belonged to the year before last!

Take to-day. Fanny would certainly feel cross and disappointed that Bella was not there, in the Park, too; and, as a matter of fact, Germaine had tried to make his wife please his sister in the little matter of Church Parade—but Bella had shaken her head smilingly.

"You know I would do anything for Fanny," she had said, "but really, darling, you mustn't ask me to do that—to go into that big, horrid, staring crowd. Why should I? It makes one look so cheap! It would only bore me, and I don't think Fanny would really enjoy having me there," and Bella had smiled a little smile.

Germaine had smiled too,—he really couldn't help it! It was quite true that Fanny would not enjoy seeing Bella looked at, followed,—in a word, triumphing, in the way she did triumph every time she appeared in a place where she was likely to be recognised.

Of course it was odd, when one came to think of it, that Bella, who had been just as pretty two years ago as she was now, should, for some mysterious reason, have been suddenly discovered, by those whose word is law in such matters, to be astonishingly, marvellously beautiful!

An involuntary smile again quivered across Oliver Germaine's good-looking face. He had but little sense of humour, and yet even he saw something almost comic about it—the way that Bella, his darling, pretty little Bella, had suddenly been exalted—hoisted up, as it were, on to a pinnacle. She was now what the Londoners of a hundred years ago would have called "the reigning toast"—so an amusing old fellow, who was a great authority on history, had told him a few days ago.

Still, he ought to make allowances for his sister Fanny. It was not in human nature—or so Oliver believed—for any woman, even for such a good sort as Fanny undoubtedly was, to be really pleased at another woman's triumph.

Small wonder that, to use his sister's favourite expression, Fanny could not make it out! It was unfortunate that Bella's fame—that fame of which the young husband was half ashamed and half proud—had actually penetrated to the dull village where his only sister held high state as wife of the lord of the manor.

Since Fanny had been in town she had said little things to him about Bella's position as reigning beauty—not altogether kindly or nice little things. Even yesterday she had observed, with a touch of sharp criticism in her voice, "I wonder, dear old boy, why you allow Bella's photograph to appear in all those low papers!" and Oliver had shrugged his shoulders, not knowing what to answer, but comfortably sure, in a brotherly way, that Fanny would have been quite willing to see her own fair features reproduced in similar fashion, had it occurred to any of the editors of these same enterprising papers to ask for the loan of her photograph.

As a matter of fact, he had remembered, even while she was speaking, a monstrously ugly photograph of Fanny,—Fanny surrounded by her dogs and children,—which had appeared in a well-known lady's paper. Why, she had actually sent the paper to him, marked! But Oliver magnanimously refrained from reminding her of this,—the more so, that Fanny had hurried on from the trifling question of Bella's portrait to the more serious and unpleasant one of her brother's moderate income.

But, as Germaine now told himself complacently, he had been very short with her. In fact he had administered a good brotherly snub to inquisitive Fanny. She had no business to ask him a lot of questions concerning the way he and Bella chose to spend their income; it was no business of hers how the money was spent. Unfortunately Fanny did consider it her business, simply owing to the fact that she was Oliver's only sister, and very fond of him,—that went without saying,—and that unluckily her husband was Oliver's trustee. So it was that she had shown extraordinary curiosity as to how her brother and his wife managed to live in the way they did, on the income she knew they had.

"Do you know," she had said gravely, "exactly what your income is?" Oliver had nodded impatiently. Of course he knew, roughly speaking, that he and Bella had a little over two thousand a year——

"Two thousand and sixty-one pounds, eighteen shillings," she had gone on impressively. "At least that was what it was last year, for I asked Dick." Now Dick was Fanny's husband, and a most excellent fellow, but hopelessly under Fanny's thumb.

Oliver Germaine had not always been so well off. In fact, when he first met Bella—something like six years ago—he had been a subaltern, with a very small private income, in a Line regiment. And it was on that small income that the loveliest girl in Southsea—now the most beautiful woman in London—had married him. Then had come an immense, unlooked-for piece of good fortune!

A distant Scotch cousin, a crusty old chap, of whom all the Germaines were afraid, and who had constantly declared it to be his intention to leave his money outside his own family, had chosen to make Oliver his heir, and had appointed Fanny's husband, the steady-going, rather dull Shropshire squire, as trustee.

Of course Oliver, and even more Bella, knew now that the fortune which had seemed then to make them rich beyond their wildest dreams, was not so very much after all. But still, at first, it had been plenty—plenty for everything they could reasonably require.

But when Bella had become a famous beauty, they had of course to spend rather more, and about a year ago they had gone through rather a disagreeable moment. The little house in West Chapel Street which had seemed so cheap had proved more expensive than they had expected. However, Dick, as trustee, had stretched a point in his brother-in-law's favour, and the slight shrinkage which had resulted in the Germaines' income mattered not at all from the practical point of view, for the simple reason that they went on spending as much as, in fact rather more than, they had done before—but it was tiresome having to pay, as they now had to do, an insurance premium.

Still, it was too bad of Fanny to have spoken as she had done, for Bella was wonderfully economical. Take one simple matter; all their friends, or at any rate the majority of them, had motors as a matter of course, but Bella, when she was not driving, as she generally did, in a car lent her by some kind acquaintance, contented herself with jobbing an old-fashioned brougham.

This restraint was the more commendable inasmuch that a friend had lately pointed out to her a way in which one could run a motor brougham in town on almost nothing at all. One bought a second-hand car for about seventy-five pounds; it was kept for one at a garage for fifteen shillings a week, and one looked out for a gentleman chauffeur who loved motoring for its own sake, and who had some little means of his own. With care the whole thing need not cost more than a hundred and fifty pounds the first year, and less the second. They could not afford to do this just yet, though Bella was convinced it would be true economy, but Oliver hoped to start something of the kind the following winter.

Of course Oliver was never exactly easy about money. Everything always cost just a little more than he expected. It sounded absurd, and he would not have said so to anyone but himself, but they had to live up to Bella's reputation—that is, they had to go everywhere, and do everything. Yet neither of them lacked proper pride. They differed from some people they knew—that is, they did not (more than they could help) live on their rich friends. Their only real extravagance last year had been sharing a house during Goodwood week. That had let them in for a great deal more than they had expected—in fact, not to put too fine a point on it, they had been rooked, regularly rooked, and by people whom they had thought their intimate friends!

Germaine sighed impatiently. This little uneasiness about money was the one spot on a very bright sun. But he had no wish to confide this fact to Fanny! Fanny would be certain to blame Bella. He remembered very well, though she had apparently forgotten it, the way Fanny had behaved at the time of his marriage.

The fact that the girl he wished so ardently to make his wife was lovely (no one could have denied that even then), and quite sufficiently well connected, had not counterbalanced, from the prudent sister's point of view, Bella Arabin's lack of fortune and her having been brought up in such a "mixed" place (whatever that might mean) as Southsea.

But Bella had never borne malice; and far from being spoilt or rendered "uppish" by her sudden intoxicating success, Bella was, if anything, nicer than before. She and Oliver were still devoted, still happier together than apart; their quarrels, so far, had been only lovers' quarrels....

Germaine grew restless—restless and tired. He had not had such a thinking bout for a long time. Just as he reached Grosvenor Gate for the fifth or sixth time, it struck a quarter-past one. In a sense there was plenty of time, for they lunched at a quarter to two; he would give Fanny ten more minutes and then go off home without her.

The young man looked round. Every bench was full, but there were plenty of empty chairs. He dragged one of them forward, and placed it with its back to a large tree. From there he could see everyone who came in and out of the gate, and so he and Fanny would not lose a moment looking for one another. But, though many went out, very few came in; the Park was beginning to empty.

Suddenly two middle-aged women, the one very stout, the other very thin, walked slowly through the gate. They struck across Germaine's line of vision, and for a moment his dark eyes rested on them indifferently. Then his gaze changed into something like attention, for he had a vague impression of having seen the elder of these two women before. What was more, he felt certain he had seen her in some vaguely unpleasant connection.

For a moment he believed her to be one of the cook-housekeepers with whom he and Bella had grappled during the earlier days of their married life. But no, this short stout woman with the shrewd, powerful face Germaine seemed to know, did not look like a servant. Even he could see that her black clothes were handsome and costly, if rather too warm for a fine July day. Her thin, nervous-looking companion was also dressed with some pretension and research, but she lacked the other's look of stout prosperity.

They were typical Londoners, of the kind to be seen on the route of every Royal procession, and standing among the crowd outside the church door at every fashionable marriage—women who, if they had lived in the London of the Georges, would have walked a good many miles to see a fellow-creature swing. But to Oliver Germaine they were simply a couple of unattractive-looking women, one of whom he thought he had seen before, and whose proximity was faintly disagreeable.

Germaine's mind had dwelt on them longer than it would otherwise have done because, when just in front of him, they stopped short and hesitated; then, looking round them much as Germaine himself had looked round a few minutes before, and, the elder woman taking the lead, each dragged a chair forward, and sat down a yard or so to the young man's right, the trunk of the tree stretching its gnarled grey girth between.

Seven minutes of the ten Oliver meant to allow Fanny had now gone by, and he felt inclined to cut the other three minutes short, and go straight home. After all, it was too bad of her to be so unpunctual!

And then, striking on his ear, shreds of the conversation which was taking place between the two women sitting near him began to penetrate Oliver Germaine's brain. Names fell on his ear—Christian names, surnames, with which he was familiar, evoking the personalities of men and women with whom he was on terms of acquaintance, in some cases of close friendship.

Unconsciously his clasped hands tightened on the knob of his stick, and he caught himself listening—listening with a queer mixture of morbid interest and growing disgust.

It was the elder woman who spoke the most, and she was a good speaker, with that trick,—self-taught, instinctive,—of making the people of whom she was speaking leap up before the listener. Now and again she was interrupted by little shrieks of astonishment and horror—her companion's way of paying tribute to the interesting nature of the conversation.

How on earth—so Oliver Germaine asked himself with heating cheek—had the woman obtained her peculiarly intimate knowledge of those of whom she was speaking? The people, these men and women, especially women, whose lives, the inner cores of whose existences, were being probed and ruthlessly exposed, almost all belonged to the Germaines' own particular set,—if indeed such a prosperous and popular couple as were Oliver and Bella, could be said to have a particular set in that delightful world into which they had only comparatively lately effected an entrance, and of which the strands all intermingle the one with the other.

Germaine was too young, he had been too happy, he was too instinctively kindly, to concern himself with other people's private affairs, save in a wholly impersonal fashion. He had always avoided the hidden, unspoken side of life; when certain secrets were confided to him they dropped quickly out of his mind; ugly gossip passed him by.

Yet now he found himself listening to very ugly gossip; some feeling outside himself, some instinct which for the moment mastered him, made him stay on there, eavesdropping.

For the moment the stream of venom was directed against Mrs. Slade, the pretty, harmless little woman whom he would see within the next hour sitting at his own table. She was one of Bella's special friends, and Oliver had got quite fond of her, the more so that he was well aware that she was in a difficult position, owing to the fact, not of her seeking, or so the Germaines believed, that her husband spent most of his life away from her, abroad.

In this special case, Germaine knew something of the hidden wounds; it was horrible to hear this—this old devil engaged in plucking the scabs from these same wounds, and exposing to her vulgar companion the shifts to which the unfortunate little woman was put. Nay, more, she said certain things concerning Mrs. Slade which, if they were true, or even only half true, made the poor little soul under discussion no fit friend or companion for Germaine's own spotless wife, Bella....

The burden of the old woman's talk was money, how people got money, how they spent money, how they did without money. That was the idea running through all her conversation, although it was, of course, concerned with many uglier things than money.

Had they been men speaking Germaine would have been sufficiently filled with righteous indignation to have found words with which to rebuke, even to threaten them, but they were women, common women, and he felt tongue-tied, helpless.

And then, suddenly, there leapt into the conversation his own name, or rather that of his wife, the woman of whom he felt so exultantly, so selflessly proud. The allusion came in the form of a question, a question spoken in a shrill and odious Cockney accent.

"I should like to see that Mrs. Germaine. I wonder if she ever comes into the Park——"

"Not she! At any rate not on Sunday. Why she'd be mobbed!" snapped out the other.

"You don't say so! Do people run after her as much as that?"

"There's been nothing like it since Mrs. Jersey. I used to see people get up on chairs to see Mrs. Jersey go by. Not that I ever thought much of her figure—great, ugly, square shoulders. She started those square shoulders, and they've never really died out."

"Mrs. Germaine's quite another sort of beauty, the pocket Venus style, isn't she? I suppose you've had a lot to do with making her the rage," said the friend admiringly.

"I don't know about that—her kind of figure dresses itself. She's the sort that gets there anyhow. She's got that 'jennysayquoy' air, as the French put it, that makes folk turn round and stare. She gets her looks from her mother; I remember the mother—her name was Arabin—when I was with Cerise. They weren't London people—they was military. Mrs. Arabin had such pretty coaxing ways, same as the daughter has. Cerise used to let her have the things ever so much cheaper than she charged her other customers, but it paid her too."

Germaine breathed a little more easily. He knew now who this woman was. She was a certain Mrs. Bliss, Bella's dressmaker, in her way a famous old lady, whom Bella's set greatly preferred to the other dressmakers in vogue. It was Mrs. Bliss, so he remembered having heard, who had introduced some years ago the picturesque style of dressing with which his sister Fanny found such fault, and which remains loftily indifferent to the fashion.

Oliver recollected now where and when he had seen her; there had been some little trouble about an item in his wife's bill, and Bella had made him go with her to face the formidable Mrs. Bliss in the old-fashioned house in Sackville Street where the dressmaker wielded her powerful sceptre. That was before Bella had become a fashionable beauty, and Mrs. Bliss had been rather short with them both, unwilling to admit that she was wrong, although the figures proving her so stared her in the face.

And then Germaine remembered other occasions with which Mrs. Bliss's name, though not her personality, were associated. He had made out cheques to her, larger cheques than Bella could manage out of her allowance. But that was some time ago; his wife must now have given up dealing with her; and he felt glad, very glad, that this was so. A woman with such a tongue was a danger to society,—not that anyone need believe a word she said....

Suddenly the shrill Cockney voice asked yet another question concerning the beautiful Mrs. Germaine. It was couched in what the speaker would probably have described as perfectly ladylike and delicate language, but its purport was unmistakable, and Germaine made a restless movement; then he became almost rigidly still—a man cannot turn and strike a woman on the mouth.

"N-o-o, I don't think so." Mrs. Bliss spoke guardedly. "She's a lot of gentlemen buzzing around her, but that's only to be expected; and as far as I can hear there's not one that buzzes closer than another. To tell you the truth, Sophy, I'm puzzled about those Germaines. It's no business of mine, of course, but she spends three times as much as she did when I first began dressing her and she don't mind now what she does pay,—very different to what she used to do! It's only the best that's good enough for my lady now."

"Germaine's an army chap, isn't he?"

"He was—and a handsome fellow he is, too. He came into a good bit of money just after they got married, but that must be melting pretty quick. Why, she goes everywhere! Last season she really wore her clothes out. They"—she waved her hand comprehensively round a vague area comprising Marylebone and Mayfair—"scratched and fought with each other in order to get her."

"Then I suppose you don't bother about your money."

"Yes, I do," said Mrs. Bliss shortly. "I'm not that kind; I don't work for the King of Prussia, as my French tailor used to say."

There was a pause, and then in a rather different voice Mrs. Bliss went on, "I do get my money from Mrs. Germaine, but lately,—well, I won't say lately, but for the last eighteen months or so, she's always paid me in notes, two, three, sometimes four hundred pounds at a time, always in five-pound notes."

She spoke in a low voice, and yet, to Oliver Germaine, it seemed as if she shouted the words aloud.

The young man got up, and, careless of the lateness of the hour, walked away without looking around towards the Marble Arch; so alone could he be sure that Mrs. Bliss would not see him, and perchance leap to the recollection of who he was.

The words the woman had said so quietly seemed to be reverberating with loud insistence in his ear: "She's always paid me in notes." "Two, three, sometimes four hundred pounds."

What exactly had Mrs. Bliss meant by this statement? What significance had she intended it to carry? There had been a touch of regret in the hard voice, a hesitation in the way she had conveyed the pregnant confidence, which made Oliver heartsick to remember.

But after a time, as Oliver Germaine walked quickly along, uncaring as to which way he was going, almost running in his desire to outstrip his own thoughts, there came a little lightening of his bewildered misery. It was possible, just possible, that Mrs. Bliss was really thinking of some other customer.

Notes? The idea was really absurd to anyone who knew Bella, as he, Oliver, thank God, knew his wife! Why, there was never any loose money in the house, both he and Bella were always running short of petty cash.

Then the young man remembered, with a sudden tightening of the heart, that this had not been the case lately. During the last few months, since they had moved into their new house, Bella had always had money—plenty of sixpences and shillings, half crowns and half sovereigns—at his disposal. Nay more, looking back, he realised that his wife no longer teased him, as she had once perpetually teased him, for supplements, large or small, to her allowance; he had to face the fact that of late Bella's allowance had borne a surprising resemblance to the widow's cruse; it had actually sufficed for all her wants.

But he had been unsuspecting, utterly unsuspecting, and even now he hardly knew what he did suspect.

The horrible things he had heard Mrs. Bliss say about other people acted and reacted on Germaine's imagination. If these things were true, then the world in which he and Bella lived was corrupt and rotten; and, as even Oliver Germaine knew by personal experience, pitch defiles. If Daphne Slade did the things Mrs. Bliss implied she did, Bella must know it,—know it and condone it. Bella was far too clever to be taken in, as he, Oliver, had been taken in, by Mrs. Slade's pretty pathetic manner, and appealing eyes. If Mrs. Slade took money from men, what an example, what a model——Germaine's mind refused to complete the thought.

Certain of Oliver's and Bella's old acquaintances—people whom they were too kind to drop, but of whom they couldn't see as much now as they had once done, in the days before Bella became a famous beauty—would sometimes hint darkly as to the wickedness of some of the people they knew. Even Fanny had told him bluntly that Bella had got into a very fast set. "Fast" was the word his sister had used, and it had diverted him.

But was it possible that these people, whom he had thought envious and silly—and that Fanny, his rather narrow-minded and old-fashioned sister,—had been right after all? Was it possible that like so many husbands of whom he had heard, for whom he had felt contempt and pity, he had—as regarded his own cherished wife—lived in a fool's paradise?

Germaine now remembered several things that he had known—known and thought forgotten—for they had been completely apart from his own life. He recalled the case of a man in his own regiment who had shot himself three days after his wife's death. It had been publicly given out that the poor fellow had been mad—distraught with grief; but there had been many to mutter that the truth was far other, and that the man had made a shameful discovery among his dead wife's papers....

Concerning any other woman than Bella, Germaine would have admitted, perhaps reluctantly,—but still, if asked the plain question, he would have admitted, that women are damned tricky creatures, and that—well, that you never can tell!

Again, out of the past, there came back to him, with horrid vividness, the memory of a brief episode which at the time had filled him with a kind of pity, even sympathy.

It was at a ball; he was quite a youngster, in fact it was the year after he had joined, and a woman sitting out with him in a conservatory had fallen into intimate talk, as people so often do amid unfamiliar surroundings. There came a moment when she said to him, with burning, unhappy eyes, "People think I'm a good woman, but I'm not." And she had hurried on to make the nature of her sinning quite clear; she had not passion for her excuse—only lack of means and love of luxury. He had been startled, staggered by the unasked-for confidence—and yet he had not thought much the worse of her; now, retrospectively, he judged her with terrible severity.

But Bella? The thought of Bella in such company was inconceivable; and yet, deep in Oliver Germaine's heart, there grew from the seed sown by Mrs. Bliss a upas tree which for the moment overshadowed everything. He was torn with anguished jealousy, which made him forget, excepting as affording a proof of what he feared, the sordid, horrible question of the money.

Germaine had already been jealous of Bella, jealous before their marriage, and jealous since, but that feeling had been nothing, nothing to that which now held him in its grip.

As a girl, Bella had been a flirt, and, as she had since confessed more than once, she had loved to make Oliver miserable. Then, for some time after their marriage he had been angered at the way she had welcomed and courted admiration. But he had never doubted her, never for a moment thought that her love was leaving him, still less that her flirtations held any really sinister intent. He now remembered how a man, a fool of a fellow, had once brought her a beautiful jewel by way of a Christmas gift; but it had annoyed her, and, without saying anything about it to Oliver at the time, she had actually made the man take back his present!

Was it conceivable that in three or four short years Bella could have entirely altered—have become to all intents and purposes, not only another woman, but a woman of a type,—as even he was well aware, a very common type,—he would not have cared to hear mentioned in her presence?

Germaine was now at the Marble Arch. After a moment's bewildered hesitation, he went up Oxford Street, and then took a turning which would ultimately lead him home; home where Bella must be impatiently awaiting him—home where their intimates had already doubtless gathered together for lunch.

And then, during his walk through the now deserted and sun-baked streets and byways of Mayfair, Oliver Germaine passed in slow review the men and the women who composed his own and Bella's intimate circle. They rose in blurred outline against the background of his memory, and gradually the women fell out, and only the men remained,—two men, for Henry Buck did not count.

Which of these two men who came about his house in the guise of close friends, had planned to steal, to buy, the wife on whose absolute purity and honour he would an hour ago have staked his life?

Germaine's fevered mind leapt on Bob Uvedale. What were Uvedale's relations, his real relations, with Bella? Oliver, so he now told himself sorely, was not quite a fool; he had known men who hid the deepest, tenderest—he would not say the most dishonourable—feelings, towards a married woman, under the skilful pretence of frank laughing flirtation.

Uvedale, when all was said and done, was an adventurer, living on his wits. He talked of his poverty, talked of it over-much, but he often made considerable sums of money; in fact twice, in moments of unwonted expansiveness, Uvedale had offered to put Germaine on to a "good thing," to share with him a tip which had been given him by one of his financial friends. Germaine now remembered, with a sick feeling of anger, how seriously annoyed Bella had been to find that her husband had refused to have anything to do with it; nay more, how she had taunted him afterwards when the "good thing" had turned out good after all. But that was long ago, when they had first known Uvedale.

They now knew Uvedale too well—at least Bella did. Oliver was an outdoor man; he hated crowds. He remembered how often Uvedale took his place as Bella's companion at those semi-public gatherings, charity fÊtes, and so on, which apparently amused her, and where the presence of the beautiful Mrs. Germaine was always eagerly desired.

Germaine's mind next glanced with jealous anguished suspicion at another man who was constantly with Bella—Peter Joliffe.

There was a great, almost a ludicrous, contrast between Uvedale and Joliffe. Uvedale, so Germaine dimly realised even now, was a man with a wider, more generous, outlook on life than the other, capable of deeper depths, of higher heights.

Joliffe was well off; and, as the Germaines had been told very early in their acquaintance with him, he had the reputation of being "near." But Bella and Oliver had both agreed that this was not true. Only the other day Bella had spoken very warmly of Joliffe; when they had moved into their new house he had given them a Sheraton bureau, a very charming and certainly by no means a cheap piece of old furniture. Oliver had supposed it to be a delicate way of paying back some of their constant hospitality, for Joliffe was perpetually with Bella.

Time after time Germaine had come in and found Joliffe sitting with her; walking through the hall he had heard her peals of laughter at Joliffe's witticisms, the funny things he said with his serious face.

But after all jesters are men of like passions to their melancholy brethren; they can, and do, throw off the grinning mask. Bella had said, only yesterday, "There's more in Peter than you think, Oliver. Believe me, there is!" Bella always called Joliffe Peter,—she was more formal with Bob Uvedale.

Germaine now reminded himself that Joliffe did not like Uvedale, and that Uvedale did not like Joliffe. There seemed a deep, unspoken antagonism between the two men, who were yet so constantly meeting. Joliffe had gone so far as to say something—not exactly disagreeable, but condemnatory—of Uvedale's city connections, to Germaine. Joliffe was annoyed, distinctly annoyed at the way Bella went about with Uvedale, and by the fact that she often introduced him to people whose acquaintance she had herself made through Joliffe.

What had he, Oliver Germaine, been about, to allow his wife to become so intimate with two men, of whom he knew nothing? Yesterday he would have said Uvedale and Joliffe were his closest pals. But what did he really know of either of them—of their secret thoughts—their deep desires and ambitions—their shames and secret sins? Nothing—nothing. Bella's husband knew as little of Uvedale and Joliffe—in fact, till to-day, far less than they knew of him, for one or the other of these men was his enemy, and had betrayed, very basely, his hospitality.

Germaine had now lashed himself into the certainty that he was that most miserable and pitiable of civilised beings, the trusting, kindly, nay more, adoring husband, whose wife betrays him with his friend.

When others had laughed, as men have laughed, and will ever laugh, at similar ironic juxtapositions of fate, Germaine had remained grave, for he had a sensitive heart—a heart which made him realise something of what lay beneath such tales. Now he told himself that so no doubt he himself was being laughed at by the many, pitied—the thought stung deeper—by the few.

As he at last turned into Curzon Street, and so was within a few yards of his house, it struck two o'clock. By now they must all be waiting for him, and Bella would be angry, as angry as she ever allowed her sweet-tempered nature to be. But Germaine told himself savagely that he didn't care,—he was sorry to be so near home, to know that in a few moments he would have to command himself, to pretend light-hearted indifference before a crowd of people most of whom he now feared—ay, feared and hated, for they must all have long suspected what he only now knew to be the truth.

Some one touched him. He started violently. It was his sister, Fanny, pouring out a confused stream of apologies and explanations. He stared at her in silence, and she thought he was so seriously annoyed, so "put out" that he could not trust himself to speak.

But though, as they stood there face to face, he dimly realised what his sister was trying to say, how she was trying to explain her failure to keep her appointment with him in the Park, Germaine could not have told, had his life depended on it, the nature of her excuse.

Together they walked side by side to the door of his house, and, as he rang the bell, as he knocked, he remembered with a pang of jealous anguish that Bella had asked him, when they moved into this house, not to use a latch-key in the daytime; she had explained to him that to do so prevented the servants keeping up to the mark, and he had obeyed her, as he always did obey her. This trifle made his anger, for the moment his impotent anger, become colder, clarified.

It was only an hour later, but at last they were all gone, these people whom Oliver Germaine had now begun to hate and suspect, each in their different measure, women and men. Everyone had left, that is, excepting Henry Buck and Fanny; and Fanny was just going away, Oliver seeing her off at the front door.

Germaine believed that he had carried himself well. True, Uvedale had said to him, "Feeling a bit chippy, old chap?" and twice he had noticed Joliffe's rather cold grey eyes fixed attentively on his face, but under the chatter of the women—Jenny Arabin was a great talker and in a harmless sort of way a great gossip, always knowing everybody's business better than they did themselves—under cover of the women's chatter, he had been able to remain silent, and, whatever the two men present had suspected,—one of the two forced thereto by his own conscience,—Bella had certainly noticed nothing. She had not even seen, as his sister had seen, that Oliver looked tired and unlike himself.

Why, just now Fanny had spoken to him solicitously about his health—blundering, tactless, Fanny had actually asked him if anything special were worrying him!

He shut the door on his sister, and crossed the little hall. The time had now come when he must have it out with Bella.

Then, suddenly, there came over Germaine a feeling as if he had been living through a hideous nightmare. If that were indeed so, then his whole life would not be too long to secretly atone to Bella for his horrible suspicion.

It seemed suddenly monstrous that he should suspect Bella on the word of a Mrs. Bliss. His wife had a right, after all, to pay her dressmaker in bank-notes if the fancy seized her. Sometimes when Bella did something that he, Oliver, did not like or approve, she explained that her mother had done the same thing, and the excuse always irritated him, left him without an answer.

Supposing that Bella were now to tell him that the late Mrs. Arabin, whose reputation for a certain daring liveliness and exceeding beauty still lingered in the ever-shifting naval and military society where he had first met his wife, always paid her bills in notes and cash rather than by cheque—what then?

He walked up the staircase; Henry Buck passed him coming down. Germaine's eyes rested on the awkward figure, the plain, good-natured face. Rabbit was certainly lacking in tact; he always outstayed all their other guests, and he never knew when Bella was tired, but still he was the one human being present at the little lunch party at whom Oliver had been able to look without a feeling of unease.

Slowly he turned the painted china knob of the drawing-room door.

Bella was standing before the Sheraton bureau which had been the gift of Peter Joliffe. She had apparently been putting something away; Germaine heard the click of the lock. She turned round quickly, and her husband thought there was a look of constraint on her face.

"Why, Oliver," she said, "I thought you were going out with Fanny this afternoon!"

"With Fanny?" he stammered, "I never thought of doing such a thing."

"But you're not going to stay in, are you?"

He looked at her attentively, and again there surged up in his heart wild jealousy and suspicion. Why did she ask whether he was going to stay in? Which of the two men who had just left the house was she expecting to come back as soon as he, poor deluded fool, was safely out of the way?

But Bella went on speaking rather quickly: "I shan't go out. I'm tired. Besides, I'm expecting some people to tea. So perhaps I'd better go and take my hat off. I shall only be a few minutes; do wait till I come back." Bella spoke rather breathlessly, moving across the room towards the door.

Then she didn't want him to go out? He had wronged her in this, at any rate. Germaine stared at the door through which his wife had just gone with a feeling of miserable uncertainty.

Then his eye travelled round to the place where she had been standing just now, in front of Joliffe's bureau. A glance at Bella's bank-book would set his mind at rest one way or the other. It would go far to prove or disprove the story Mrs. Bliss had told, for it would show if Bella were indeed in the habit of drawing considerable cheques to "self." Why hadn't he thought of this simple test before,—before shaming himself and shaming his wife by base suspicions?

And yet Oliver, for some few moments, stood in the middle of the room irresolute. Yesterday it would never have occurred to him that Bella would mind his looking at her bank-book, although, as a matter of fact he never had looked at it. She was a tidy little woman; he knew that everything under the flap which he had seen her close down so quickly just now would be exquisitely neat; he knew the exact spot where her bank-book was to be found.

With a curious feeling that he was doing something dishonourable,—and it was a feeling which sat very uneasily on Oliver Germaine,—he took hold of the little brass knob and slid up the flap of the sloping desk.

The bank-book closed the ranks of the red household books over which in old days, when they were first married, before he had come into his fortune, he had actually seen Bella shed tears.

With fingers that felt numb he took up the little vellum-bound book and opened it at the page containing the latest items.

There, on the credit side, was the sum of money which had been paid in, to his bankers' order, on the last quarter day. On the debit side were a few cheques made out to trades-people. There was not a single cheque made out to "self" on the page at which he was looking; but—but of course it was possible that Bella, like so many women, added a few pounds for change every time she settled a tradesman's account.

He turned several leaves of the little book backwards——Here was a page which bore the date of three years ago; and here, as he had feared to find, there were constant, small entries to "self"....

By the empty place on the shelf where the bank-book had stood was a gilt file for bills, a pretty little toy which had been given her, so the husband now remembered, by Uvedale. The letters composing the word "paid" were twisted round the handle—horrible symbolic word!

He took up the file and ran his fingers through the receipted bills.

Ah! here at last, was one which bore the name of Mrs. Bliss.

The amount of the bill amazed him,—eight hundred and seventy-one pounds, sixteen shillings,—and Bella had paid four hundred pounds on account about a fortnight before. It was the only bill on the file on which there still remained a balance owing. Germaine did not need to look again at his wife's bank-book to see that the majority of the receipted bills had not been paid by cheque.

These bills, so he now became aware with a frightful contraction of the heart, were for all sorts of things—expensive trifles, costly hot-house flowers, extravagantly expensive fruit—which he had enjoyed, and of which he had partaken, believing, if he thought of the matter at all—fool that he had been—that they were being paid for out of his modest income, the income which had once seemed so limitless.

"What are you doing, Oliver? You've no business to look at my things. I never look at yours." He had not heard the door open, and Bella had crept up swiftly behind him; there was some anger, but there was far more fear, in her soft voice.

Germaine turned round and looked at his wife.

Bella had changed her dress, and she was now wearing a painted muslin gown, her slender waist girdled with a blue ribbon. She looked exquisitely lovely, and so young,—a girl, a young and innocent girl.

There fell a heavy hand on her rounded shoulder.

"Oliver!" she cried, "you're hurting me!"

He withdrew his hand—quickly.

"Bella," he said, "I only want to ask you one question—I know everything,"—and in answer to a strange look that came over her face he added hurriedly, "Never mind how I found out. I have found out, and now I only want to ask you one thing—I—I have a right to know who it is."

"Who it is?" she repeated. "I don't understand what you mean, Oliver? Who—what?" but as Bella Germaine asked the useless question she shrank back; for the first time in their joint lives she felt afraid of Oliver,—afraid, and intensely sorry for him.

A sob rose to her throat. What a shame it was! How on earth could he have found out? She had thought he would go on not knowing—for ever. That this should happen now, when she was so happy too,—when everything was so—so comfortable.

"Tell me—tell me at once, Bella," he said again, shaken almost out of his self-control by her pretended lack of understanding.

But Bella made no answer; she was retreating warily towards the open window; Oliver, poor angry Oliver, could not say much, he could not do anything, out on the balcony.

But he grasped her arm. "Come back," he said, "right into the room," and forced her, trembling, down into a low chair. "Now tell me," he repeated. "Don't keep me waiting—I can't stand it. I won't hurt you." He leant over her, grasping her soft arm.

But still Bella said nothing. Her free hand was toying with the fringe of her blue sash. She had become very pale, a sickly yellow colour which made her violet eyes seem blue,—for one terrible moment Oliver thought she was going to faint.

"Why should I tell you?" she muttered at last, "you can't force me to tell you. It's a matter personal to myself. It's no business of yours. I've never spent any of the money on you,"—she unfortunately added, "at least hardly any."

Germaine took his hand from her arm. "My God!" he said, "my God!"

Did a dim gleam of what he was feeling penetrate Bella's brain?

"I don't know why you should trouble to ask me," she said defiantly. "Surely you must know well enough."

"I daresay I'm stupid, but I find it very difficult to guess which of the two, Joliffe or—or Uvedale, is your lover."

"My lover? Joliffe—Uvedale?" Bella started to her feet, the colour rushed back into her face. She was shaking with anger and indignation.

"How dare you insult me so?" she gasped. "You wouldn't have dared to say such a thing if my father had been alive! How dare you say, how dare you think, I have a lover?" and then with quivering pain she gave a little cry, "Oh, Oliver!"

Germaine looked at her grimly enough. What a fool—what an abject fool he had been! It fed his anger to see that Bella had so poor an opinion of his intelligence as to suppose that he would believe her denial.

"I know you are lying," he said briefly. "I know it is either Joliffe or Uvedale."

"But, Oliver—indeed it isn't!"

She was looking at him with a very curious expression; the fear, the real terror, there had been in her face, had left it. She was staring at her husband as if she were seeking to find on his face some indication of a distraught, unhinged mind.

But he looked cool, collected, stern,—and anger again surged up in Bella's heart. If he were sane she would never—never forgive him his vile suspicion of her. Was it for this that she, Bella, had always gone so straight—never even been tempted to go otherwise, in spite of all the admiration lavished on her?

There had been a time in Bella Germaine's life, some two years before, when she had often rehearsed this scene, when she had been so haunted by the fear of it that it had been a constant nightmare.

But never had she imagined the conversation between Oliver and herself taking the turn it now had. Never, in her most anguished dreams, had Oliver accused her of having—a lover. But she had known, only too well, with what anger and amazement he would learn the lesser truth.

"Peter Joliffe?" she said, with a certain scorn. "How little you know Peter, Oliver, if you think he would be any married woman's lover, let alone mine! Why, Peter's a regular old maid!" She laughed a little hysterically at her simile, and, to her husband, the merriment, which he felt to be genuine, lowered the discussion to a level which was hateful—sordid.

"Then it's Uvedale," he said, heavily; and this time, so he was quick to notice, Bella did not take the trouble to utter a direct denial.

"Bob Uvedale? Are you quite mad? Bob Uvedale is really fond of you, Oliver,—do you honestly think he would make love to me?"

She was actually arguing with him; he shrugged his shoulders with a hopeless gesture.

Then Bella Germaine came quite close up to her husband. She looked at him straight in the eyes.

"I'll tell you," she said. "I see you really don't know. It's—it's——" she hesitated, again a look of shame,—more, of fear,—came into her face, "The person who has been giving me money, Oliver, is Rabbit."

"Rabbit? I don't believe you!"

"You don't believe me?"

Bella drew a long breath. The worst, from her point of view, was now over. She had told the truth,—and Oliver had brushed the truth aside, so possessed by insane jealousy of Peter Joliffe and Bob Uvedale, that he had apparently no room in his heart for anything else.

Bella gave a little sigh of relief. Perhaps, after all, she had made a mistake in being so frightened; men are so queer—perhaps Oliver would feel, as she had now felt for so long, that poor old Rabbit could not find a better use for his money than in making her happy.

She walked over to her pretty desk, and frowned a little as she saw its condition of disarray; the receipted bills which she had found her husband looking over were scattered, even the tradesmen's books had not been put back in their place on the little shelf.

She touched the spring of a rather obvious secret drawer. There had been a time when Bella Germaine had hidden very carefully what she was now about to show Oliver as the certain, triumphant proof that his revolting suspicions were false. But of late she had grown careless.

"If you don't believe me," she said coldly, "look at this, Oliver. I think it will convince you that I told the truth just now."

Bella knew she had a right to be bitterly indignant at her husband's preposterous accusation. But she told herself that now was not the time to show it; she would punish Oliver later on.

She waited a moment and then cried, "Catch!"

Oliver instinctively held out his hands. A bulky envelope fell into them. It was addressed in a handwriting he knew well,—the unformed, and yet meticulous handwriting of Henry Buck. On it was written:

In the corner were added the words:

"Any one finding this, and taking it to the above address, will be handsomely rewarded."

"Open it!" she said imperiously. "Open it, and see what is inside,—he only brought it to-day."

Oliver opened the envelope. Folded in two pieces of paper was a packet of bank-notes held together with an elastic band.

Germaine looked up questioningly at his wife.

Bella hung her head. She had the grace to feel embarrassed, ashamed in this moment that she believed to be the moment of her exculpation. Her pretty little hands, laden with rings, each one of which had been given her by her husband, were again toying with the fringe of her blue sash.

The silence grew intolerable.

"I know I've been a beast,"—her voice faltered, broke into tears. "I knew you wouldn't like it, but—but you know, Oliver, Rabbit isn't like an ordinary man."

"When did he begin to give you money?" asked Oliver, in a low voice.

"A long time ago," she answered, vaguely.

"He came in one day when I was awfully upset about a bill—a bill of that old devil, Bliss,—and he was so kind, Oliver. He explained how awfully fond he was of us both. He said we were his only friends—I always have been nice to him, you know. He said he couldn't spend the money he'd got——"

"How much have you had from him?"

"I can tell you exactly," she said eagerly, and again she moved towards her bureau.

Bella felt utterly dejected; somehow she had not expected Oliver to take the news quite in this way; he looked dreadful—not relieved, as she had thought he would do.

It was with slow lagging steps that she walked back to where her husband was still standing with the envelope and its contents crushed in his right hand.

Bella's love of tidiness and method had stood her in fatally good stead. She had put down all the sums she had received from Henry Buck, but in such a fashion that any one else looking at the figures would not have known money was in question.

Oliver stared down at the piece of paper. Insensibly he straightened his shoulders as if to meet calmly a physical blow. "Are these pounds?" he asked.

She nodded.

"But Bella, it's an enormous sum,—over four thousand."

"I suppose it is," she said listlessly.

Her husband put the paper in his breast pocket; then he hesitated a moment, and Bella thought he was perhaps going to hand her back the envelope and its contents. But that also, to her chagrin, disappeared into his pocket.

"I suppose the money Buck brought you to-day is included in this amount?"

Bella shook her head sadly. "I hadn't time to put it down," she said.

"Well, I'll see what can be done."

"I suppose you mean to pay it all back? I suppose"—her voice was trembling with self-pity—"that we shall have to go and live in the country now?"

He said nothing,—only looked at her with that same cold look of surprise and alienation.

He was leaving the room when a cry from her brought him back. She clutched his hand.

"You've never said you're sorry for the horrible thing you said to me——" and, as he looked at her, still silent, "Oliver! you surely don't think that Rabbit——Why, he's never even squeezed my hand!"

"Stop!" he cried roughly. "Don't be silly, Bella. Of course I don't think anything of the kind. I accept absolutely what you tell me of your relations with Henry Buck."

"Why, there have been no relations with Henry Buck and me," she cried, protesting. "What a hateful word to use, Oliver!"

But he was already out of the door, making his way to the only human being in whom he still felt complete confidence, who, he knew, loved him, in the good old homely sense of the word.

"My dear boy, what is the matter?"

Fanny sat up. She had been lying down on the sofa in the sitting-room of her lodgings. Oliver had explained to the servant that he was Mrs. Burdon's brother, and he had been allowed to make his own way up to the drawing-room floor.

"There's a good deal the matter," he said. "The fact is I've made a fool of myself, Fanny,—and I've come to you for help."

Fanny looked up at him, and what she saw checked the words on her lips. She was wide awake now, but rather painfully conscious that she looked untidy. Her smart voile gown—voile was the "smart" material that season—was crumpled. And Oliver's wife, Bella, was always so dreadfully, so unnaturally, tidy and neat,—it was one of the things that perhaps made people think her so much prettier than she really was.

"Of course I will help you," she answered briskly. "Tell me all about it."

"Have you still that five thousand pounds Cousin Andrew left you?"

"Why of course I have,—and it's rather more now, for luckily we didn't put it into Consols; we put it into a Canadian security."

"Is it invested in Dick's name?"

Dick's wife laughed. "No, of course it isn't," she said. "Why should it be?"

"Could you get at it without Dick's knowing?"

"Yes, I suppose I could." There was a touch of wonder in her voice.

"Fanny, I want you to lend me four thousand pounds." Oliver spoke huskily. He was staring out of the window.

His sister looked at him rather queerly for a moment: "Yes, of course I will," she said. And, as he turned to her, his face working,—"You needn't make a fuss about it, dear old boy. You'll pay me back all right, I know that."

"I'll insure against it, and I'll pay you proper interest for it—whatever you're getting now," he said. "And we'll get a lawyer to see that it's all made safe."

"That'll be all right," said Fanny, and then again she gave him that curious, considering look.

Germaine pulled himself together. "You'll think I've been a fool," he exclaimed abruptly,—he had to say something in answer to that look,—"and so I have. But you know—at least you don't know, luckily for you—what it's like to be mixed up with a lot of fellows who are all richer than one is oneself;" and then in a very different tone, one in which his sister felt the ring of truth, "Are you sure Dick won't know, Fanny? I don't want Dick to know."

"Of course he won't know," Fanny smiled. "You don't suppose I tell Dick everything?"

Oliver stared at his sister. He was rather shocked by her admission; till to-day he had thought that all husbands and wives who loved one another told each other everything; and yet, here was Fanny, who hadn't a thought in the world beyond Dick, the children, the dogs—and, and, yes, her brother——

"It's none of Dick's business what I choose to do with my own money—not that he'd mind."

"I think of spreading the re-payment over five years."

"That would be rather too soon," she said; and added, looking away as she spoke, "I don't think it would be fair to Bella."

Oliver reddened, a man's dusky unbecoming blush.

"Bella's been good about it," he said briefly. "She said herself that we should have to go and live in the country. Still, let's make it seven years. I say, Fanny, you are a brick," and sitting down by the table, Oliver Germaine broke into hard, painful sobs.

Fanny got up off the sofa. She felt rather shy.

"Don't be so worried," she said. "Bella's a very good sort, and awfully fond of you, old boy. She'll like the country better than you think. Her looks will last twice as long there, and, and—if I were you, Oliver—you and Bella I mean," Fanny got rather mixed, and very red—"well, I'd try and have a baby. Bella would look awfully sweet with a baby. And a baby's no trouble in the country—less trouble than a puppy!"

"Yes, that's true," he said, raising his head, and feeling vaguely comforted. His sister Fanny had a lot of sense. Oliver had always known that.