LAURENCE DESMOND had received a whole packet of invitations to country-houses, where Christmas was to be kept with something of the traditional warmth and joviality, and with ample entertainment in the way of carpet-dances, and amateur concerts, and impromptu comedies in the style popular at that Italian theatre which was so dangerous a rival to the house of Molière. But to all such invitations Mr. Desmond had returned the same kind of answer. The laborious duties of the _Areopagus_ kept him prisoner in town, and would so keep him throughout the winter. This was what the editor told his friends, but the fact was that Mr. Desmond dared not indulge any natural yearnings for jovial hunting-breakfasts, or private theatricals, or country gatherings of pretty girls and hard-riding young men. He was bound to devote all Christmas leisure to the society of Mrs. Jerningham. The lady received her share of invitations from the chiefs of those very houses to which Mr. Desmond was bidden, but elected to refuse all. “I do not care to be stared at and gossiped about, as if I were some kind of natural curiosity,” she said, when she discussed the subject with her friend. “The men watch you with malicious grins whenever you are decently civil to me, and the women watch me with more intense malice whenever you talk to other women. There are times when we are compelled to walk upon red-hot ploughshares, and then, of course, _noblesse oblige_, we must tread the iron with a good grace. But I don’t see why we should go out of our way to find the ploughshares.” “My dear Emily, you insist on looking at everything in this bitter spirit.” “I know the world in which I live.” “I think the world has been extremely gracious to you.” “Perhaps so; but the world has taken care to let me know that I am accepted on sufferance. Your position in literature, and Mr. Jerningham’s fortune, sustain a platform for me, but it is a slippery platform at best. I am happier in my own house than anywhere else.” “But unhappily you are not happy in your own house.” “At any rate, I am less miserable.” Mr. Desmond shrugged his shoulders. He felt that his burden was growing heavier day by day, but he could not find it in his heart to be hard upon this beautiful woman, whose worst error was to love him with a jealous, suspicious love that made her own torment and his. And by and by, when the demon of discontent had been exorcised, Mrs. Jerningham grew animated and gracious, and put on her sweetest smiles for the man she loved. “You will spend Christmas Day with me, Laurence, will you not?” she pleaded. “I suppose I shall be honoured by your society on that day _at least_?” The little, piteous air with which she uttered the last words, was scarcely justified by circumstances; since Mr. Desmond spent always one day, and sometimes two days a week at the Hampton villa.