“Oh, nothing at all,” was his reply. And shortly after, dinner by this time being over, he gave her a significant look, to which she responded by rising from the table. “It is time for us to go up-stairs, my dear,” she said to Frances. And when the ladies reached the drawing-room, it had relapsed into its morning aspect, and looked as chilly and as unused as before. “Your uncle is one of the busiest men in London,” said Mrs Clarendon with a scarcely perceptible sigh. “He talked of your health; but if he had not the finest health in the world, he could not do it; he never takes any rest.” “Is he going to work now?” Frances asked with a certain awe. “He will take a doze for half an hour; then he will have his coffee. At ten he will come up-stairs to bid me good-night; and then--I dare not say how long he will sit up after that. He can do with less sleep than any other man, I think.” She spoke in a tone that was full of pride, yet with pathos in it too. “In that way, you cannot see very much of him,” Frances said. “I am more pleased that my husband should be the first lawyer in England, than that he should sit in the drawing-room with me,” she answered proudly. Then, with a faint sigh: “One has to pay for it,” she added. The girl looked round upon the dim room with a shiver, which she did her best to conceal. Was it worth the price, she wondered? the cold dim house, the silence in it which weighed down the soul, the half-hour’s talk (no more) round the table, followed by a long lonely evening. She wondered if they had been in love with each other when they were young, and perhaps moved heaven and earth for a chance hour together, and all to come to this. And there was her own father and mother, who probably had loved each other too. As she drove along to Eaton Square, warmly wrapped in the rich fur cloak which aunt Caroline had insisted on adding to her other gifts, these examples of married life gave her a curious thrill of thought, as involuntarily she turned them over in her mind. If the case of a man were so with his wife, it would be well not to marry, she said to herself, as the inquirers did so many years ago. And then she blushed crimson, with a sensation of heat which made her throw her cloak aside, to think that she was going back to her mother, as if she had been sent out upon a raid, laden with spoils. CHAPTER XXVI.