"There is: and you know it, Adela. You may treat me as you like; I cannot, unfortunately, alter that; but I will guard _you_ from being talked about. As to Cleveland----" "Charley," she broke in, turning her head to look for him; "Charley, do you hear my husband? He would like to---- I thought Charley was here." "Had he been here, I should not have spoken," was Mr. Grubb's reply, signs of mortification on his refined and sensitive lips. "Is your rôle going to be that of a jealous husband at last?" "No," he replied. "You have striven, with unnecessary endeavour, to deaden the love for you which once filled my heart; if that love has not turned to gall and bitterness, it is not your fault. This is not a case for jealousy, Adela. You must know that. _I_ jealous of a schoolboy!" "What is it a case of, then?" "Your fair reputation. That shall be cared for in the eyes of the world." "There is no necessity for your caring for it," she retorted. "My reputation--and your honour--are perfectly safe in my own keeping. There lives not a man who could bring disgrace upon me. You are out of your senses, Mr. Grubb." "That my honour is safe, I do not doubt," he returned, drawing himself slightly up. "Forgive me, if my words could have borne any other construction. I speak only of your reputation for folly--frivolity. The world is laughing at you: and I do not choose that it shall laugh." A shade of annoyance flashed into her pretty face. "The world is nothing to me. It had better laugh at itself." "Perfectly true. But I must take care it does not laugh at you. Your mother spoke to me today about Charles Cleveland. She called you a child, Adela; and she said, if I did not interfere and put a stop to it, she should." "Let my mother mind her own affairs," was Adela's answer, full of resentment. "She can dictate to the two who are left to her, but not to the rest of us. When we married, we passed out of her control." "Surely not. Your mother is always your mother." "Pray where did you see her? Has it come to secret meetings, in which my conduct is discussed?" "Nonsense, Adela! Lady Acorn came to see me in Leadenhall Street, but upon other matters." "And so you got up a nice little mare's-nest between you! That I was too fond of Charles Cleveland, and ought to be put in irons for it!" "That you were too _free_ with him, Adela," corrected her husband. "That your manners with him, chiefly in this your own house, were losing that reserve which ought to temper them, though he is but a boy. It was she who said the world was laughing at you." "And what did you say?" asked Lady Adela, with an ill-concealed sneer. "I said nothing," he replied, a sort of sadness in his tone. "I could have said that the subject had for some little time been to me a source of annoyance; and I might have added that if I had refrained from remonstrance, it was because remonstrance from me to my wife had ever been worse than useless."