"I am afraid that I do think it rather narrow-minded," said Hubert quietly, but with a dangerous lighting of his eyes. "You must surely know that some of these singers are as good, as noble, as womanly as any of your sheltered young ladies in their home-circles, who have not genius enough to make themselves talked of by the world!" "Oh, yes, I suppose so!" said Enid, quite unconscious of the storm that she was exciting in Hubert's breast. "But it is difficult to understand why they prefer a public life to a private one. Do you think they really like appearing on the stage?" "I am sure they do," said Hubert, with a short laugh. "You cannot understand it as yet, I suppose; you will understand it by-and-by. It would be a very poor lookout for a novelist and playwright like myself, Enid, if every one thought as you do." And then he got up and walked to meet the General, who was approaching the tea-table, and, as the two were soon deep in political matters, Enid presently slipped away unobserved. She felt vaguely that she had vexed or disappointed her lover; she knew the tones of his voice well enough to feel sure that in some way she had said what he did not approve. And yet, on reflection, she could not see that she had given him legitimate cause of offence. She knew that he did not agree with her in preferring country to town; or in thinking that women who sang in public were not quite of her class; but she did not think that he ought to be angry with her for expressing her views. He perplexed her very much by his moments of irritation, of coldness, of absence of mind. At times he was certainly very different. He could be most tender, though always with the tenderness of a grown man to a child, of a strong person towards a weak one--and this was a kind of tenderness which did not satisfy Enid's heart. Sometimes indeed she was thankful that it was so, feeling as if any great display of affection on his part would be overwhelming, out of place; but at other times she felt that his calm kindness was almost an insult to the woman whom he had asked to be his wife. A little while back she would not have thought so--she would have been well content with his behavior; but a new factor had come into her life since her engagement to Hubert Lepel, some new and agitating consciousness of power had dawned upon her, with a revelation of faculties and influences to which she had hitherto been a stranger; and, in presence of these novel emotions and discoveries, Hubert was weighed in the balance and found wanting.