"I got special leave," he said. "I thought"—a forced lightness struggled through his gravity—"I thought it was not good manners to desert my own table on the first evening. I am glad that I managed—to come in time. I shall be ready in a minute." He turned and went into his dressing-room, giving neither time to answer. Nora stared blankly after him. She felt as though she had allowed some one to strike him across the face without protest, and that he had gone away, not angrily, but wounded—perhaps beyond her powers of healing. "What a pity!" she heard Miles say behind her. "I had looked forward to our evening together." Nora turned. In her anger and desperation, she could scarcely keep her voice under control. "Do not talk like that, Miles," she said. "What you think of Wolff does not matter. I am his wife, and this is his home. Remember that!" Miles put his hand in his pocket and smiled. His smile suggested a perfect understanding. "I have said what I want to say," he observed. "I shall not need to say it again." *CHAPTER VI* *IN WHICH THE REV. JOHN RECEIVES A SHOCK* A few days after his arrival, Miles wrote home in the following terms: "MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER, "I have landed safely, as you know by my telegram, and I expect you are wondering why I have not written before. As a matter of fact, I wanted to have a look round me to see how things were before I broke the news to you. I tell you honestly, if it were not for Nora’s sake, and because, of course, I want to pick up some of the lingo, I should have packed up my trunks and come home by the next train. You know how Nora described things to us. You might have imagined them living in palatial apartments with a footman and I don’t know what to wait on them. "Well, my palatial apartment measured eight by eight, and when I get out of bed I have to take care that I don’t fall out of the window or into the water-jug. As to the footman, he is a scrubby-looking orderly, who drops bits of potato down your collar whilst he is serving and can’t understand a word you say to him. So much for my share of the grandeur. There are four other rooms and they have all about the same dimensions, and have evidently been furnished out of some second-hand place by some one who suffered from colour-blindness. As to the atmosphere! Imagine a kitchen-range with the fat in the fire and you have an idea. Of course, Nora, being English, keeps the windows open, but that’s not much good, because we look out on to houses in the front and dirty yards at the back; in fact, I shouldn’t think there was a breath of fresh air for miles round. Well, I was fairly thunderstruck, I can tell you, and I have been in varying stages of that condition ever since.