The men did not sit long over their wine. The doctor and his host talked agriculture, Mr. Crowther discussing all farming operations upon a large scale as became a man of territorial magnitude. The vicar prosed about an approaching lecture at the schoolroom, and utterly failed in hearing anything that was said in reply to his observations. Colonel Disney smoked a cigarette in silence, and with a moody brow. Later, in the drawing-room, while the Crowther girls were playing a clamorous duet, by the last fashionable Sclavonic composer, Vansittart Crowther directed his conversation almost wholly to Mrs. Disney, as if she were the only person worthy of his attention. He was full of suggestions for future gaieties in which the Disneys were to share--picnics, boating parties. “You must help us to wake up the neighbourhood, colonel,” he said, addressing Disney, with easy friendliness. “We are not very likely to be of much assistance to you in that line,” Disney answered coldly. “We are quiet stay-at-home people, my wife and I, and take our pleasures on a very small scale.” Colonel Disney’s carriage was announced at this moment. He gave his wife a look which plainly indicated his wish to depart, and she rose quickly from the low, deep chair in which she had been sitting, in some manner a captive, while Mr. Crowther lolled across the broad, plush-cushioned arm to talk to her. Allegra was engrossed in a talk about William Morris’s last poem with Mr. Colfox, who was delighted to converse with any one fresh from the far-away world of art and literature--delighted altogether with Allegra, whose whole being presented a piquant contrast to the Miss Crowthers. But the colonel’s sister saw the movement towards departure, and hastened to her brother’s side. Briefest adieux followed, and the first of the guests being gone, left behind them a feeling of uneasiness in those whose carriages had been ordered half an hour later. One premature departure will cast a blight upon your small dull party; whereas from a scene of real mirth the nine Muses and three Graces might all slip away unmissed and unobserved. CHAPTER X. “OF THE WEAK MY HEART IS WEAKEST.” “You had better send cards to Mrs. Crowther, Isola,” said Martin Disney, two days afterwards, when his wife was sitting at her Davenport writing her family letters. “Cards! Oh, Martin, she would think that so very formal. I can call upon her. She is always at home on Thursday afternoons, and she likes me to go.” “I am sorry for that, since I had rather you should never enter her house again.” “Martin!” “I have nothing to say against Mrs. Crowther, my dear Isola. But the man is more detestable than I could have believed low birth and unlimited money could make any man. Guileless and inexperienced as you are, I think you must have felt that his manner to you the other night was familiar to the point of being insulting.”