"It's the nicest acknowledgment you could possibly make them. I am so glad you thought of it." Her approval of the idea was generous and eager. And she was excitedly interested in the Grosvenor Place household. She plied him with questions. Was it an old peerage? Was there a great country house? Had Lady Lakeden a brother? Then who was the heir to the title?--would it pass to a collateral line? He enlightened her on all these matters, sketching out for her the grooves which the lives of such people generally occupied. And he threw out the reflection that it was lucky indeed the renewal of his relations with Grosvenor Place had not been delayed any further. He had gone back there in the very nick of time, for the house was going to be shut up; the earl leaving in a week or so to take a long sea voyage, whilst Lady Lakeden meditated departure as soon as the portrait was done. Alice remarked that they seemed to be fond of roaming about a great deal, and Wyndham pointed out that Lady Lakeden and her father were exceptionally placed, were to a great extent emancipated from the "swim." The earl had practically retired from society, and his daughter, as a young widow, naturally sought distraction in her own way, though of course she could float brilliantly back into the world whenever the mood took her. Since the portrait was going to the Salon, he was naturally compelled to tell Alice about it. But the intense way in which she seemed to be fixing her eyes on the Grosvenor Place household disconcerted him beyond measure. This fresh interest of his had become her interest too; she had fastened on it out of all proportion to its visible importance. At uneasy moments he asked himself if she suspected that something lay behind this apparently simple and innocent acquaintanceship; for her insistent and almost morbid return to the subject on the following days indicated its amazing hold of her. Yet, obviously, it was impossible that she should be cherishing any ideas of that kind. He flattered himself that his demeanour towards her, in this trying and difficult period, was perfect; that he was as tender in all their relations as if his heart were truly hers. Nay, he was devoting even more of his leisure to her than ever before. And for the very reason that the evening journeys to Hampstead had become distasteful, he was the more careful that there should be no falling off in his attendance there. In no wise could he have betrayed himself to his affianced wife. No, she could not possibly have any suspicion of the truth: he was satisfied that her preoccupation with the Grosvenor Place household all arose out of womanly sympathy on her part; that Lady Lakeden's tragic widowhood had touched the depths of her imagination. Poor Alice! How simple and trusting her surface reading of the facts! How ignorant of the brutal complications, as grotesque as incredible, in which Nature often wrapped up human unhappiness!