But he felt during this progress unaccountable desires. Before he was half-way up they were too strong for him. He stopped, leaned over the bannisters, looked at the two well-trained domestics who stood like statues below him, and said: “Henry!” Henry, with a perfect turn of the head, answered, “Yes, Sir Charles?” “William!” William, with a precisely similar change of attitude, said, “Yes, Sir Charles?” “What does it feel like to stand like that when another man, who simply happens to be richer than you, is going by?” The well-trained domestics made no reply. “Are you dumb?” he shouted angrily. “What’s it feel like, I say?... Blasted fools!” he muttered, when he had endured for a few seconds their continued silence. He went on up the stairs, saying half to himself and half to them: “Catch _me_ doing it. Why, there’s more money in a whelk stall!” He found his wife reading. She put down her book and asked him timidly what had been going on in the House. His only answer was to put his hand to his head and say that he was suffering. And so he was, for the pain, though less violent, had returned. She suggested, though very hesitatingly, that he should lie down. He made no reply. He put his hand before his eyes and waited with set teeth until the first violence of the pang had passed, and then said to her gently: “I beg your pardon, dear, what did you say?” It was nearly twenty years since she had heard that tone from him. She was frightened. “Did you ask what was going on in the House?” he sighed. “Well, I can tell you.” He put his hands on the chimneypiece and looked down at the fender. “There’s going on there,” he said decidedly, “as crass, imbecile and hypocritical a piece of futility as God permits: as Almighty God permits!” “Oh Charles!” she cried, “Charles! Is there any trouble?” “No,” he said, looking round at her with mild surprise, “just the usual thing. Nobody has the slightest idea what they’re talking about, and nobody cares.” “Charles!” she said, feeling the gravity of the moment, for he was evidently suffering in some mysterious way. “Have you left it all right in your room? Haven’t you any appointments or anything?” “I never thought of that,” he answered. His eyes had in them an expression quite childlike and he said suddenly: “One can still see what you were like when I married you, Maria. Turn your face round a little.” She did so, with her face full of colour. “Yes,” he said, “they keep their profiles best. You can remember them by their profiles.” “Charles darling,” said Lady Repton getting up, her white hair shining against the flush of her forehead. “Let me look after you.” She had not used such a tone nor dreamed of such an endearment for many many years.