"If!" laughingly echoed Lady Adela. "If you were Francis Grubb, you would do as he does. Why, Gracie, girl, he loves me passionately still, for all his assumed indifference. Do you think there are never moments when he betrays it? He is jealous of Charley; that's what he is, in spite of his dignified denial--and oh, the fun it is to me to have made him so!" "Adela," said Grace, sadly, "does it never occur to you that this behaviour may tire your husband out?--that his love and his patience may give way at last?" "I wish they would!" cried the provoking girl, little seeing or caring, in her reckless humour, what the wish might imply. "I wish he would go his way and let me go mine, and give me hundreds of thousands a-year for my own share. He should have the dull rooms in the house and I the bright ones, and we would only meet at dinner on state occasions, when the world and his wife came to us." Lady Grace felt downright angry. She wondered whether Adela spoke in her heart's true sincerity. "There's no fear of it, Gracie: don't look at me like that. My husband would no more part company with me, whatsoever I might do, than he would part with his soul. He loves me too well." "It is a positive disgrace to have one's married sister's name coupled with a flirtation," grumbled Grace: for the Lady Acorn, whatever might be her failings as to tongue and temper, had brought her daughters up to the purest and best of notions. "That reverend man, Dr. Short--I cannot think how it came to _his_ ears--hinted at it today in talking with mamma when they met at the picture-galleries. He----" "There it is!" shouted Adela, in glee; "the murder's out! So it is you who have been putting mamma up to complain to Mr. Grubb! You are setting your cap at that sanctimonious Dr. Short, and you fear he won't see it if you have a naughty sister given to flirting. Oh, Gracie!" "You are wrong; you know you are wrong. How frivolous you are, Adela! Dr. Short is going to be married to Miss Greatlands." "Well, there's something of the sort in the wind, I know. If it's not the Reverend Dr. Short, it's the Reverend Dr. Long; so don't shake your head at me, Gracie." Dancing across the room, Adela rang the bell. "My carriage," she said to the servant. "It has been waiting some time, my lady." "Where are you going?" asked Grace, surprised: "To Lady Sanely's." "To Lady Sanely's," echoed the elder sister. Then, after a pause, "Your husband did not know you were going there?" "Do you suppose I tell him of my engagements? What next, I wonder?" "Oh, Adela!" uttered Grace, rising from her seat--and there was a piercing sound of grief in her tone, deeper than any which had characterized it throughout the interview--"do not say you are going _there!_ Another rumour is rife about you; worse than that half-nonsensical one about Charles Cleveland; one likely to have a far graver effect on your welfare and happiness."