"But Nora knew, and she never said a word, never even tried to stop him; and when I said that I thought it was very bad manners to make fun of people whose hospitality one had enjoyed, she flared up and said that her brother was English, and that English people had different ways, and couldn’t help seeing the funny side of things—she saw them herself!" Seleneck got up and paced about restlessly. The matter was more serious than he thought, and an instinctive wisdom warned him that for the present at any rate it would be better to keep his troubles about Wolff to himself. "I wonder what is the matter with them all?" he said at last. "Of course, the brother is simply an ill-behaved cub, but I confess I do not understand Frau von Arnim. She was always so amiable, and everybody thought Wolff the luckiest fellow alive—except myself." "I can tell you exactly what is the matter," his wife said more calmly and with some shrewdness, "Marriage, after all, doesn’t work miracles, and Frau von Arnim is no more German than I am Chinese. She is English right to the core, and at the bottom of everything she despises and hates us and our ways. They are not good enough for her any more, and she wants to go back to her own life and her own people. It was all right so long as she was alone with Wolff in the first few months. One didn’t notice the gulf so much, but now she has her brother to remind her and support her, it will widen and widen. See if what I say is not true!" "It’s a very bad outlook for poor Wolff if it _is_ true," Seleneck said gloomily. "He is absolutely devoted to her." "Nevertheless, it will end badly," his wife answered, preparing to make her departure. "It is I who tell you so. Race and nationality are dividing oceans, and the man who tries to bridge them is a fool, and deserves his fate." And with these words of wisdom she disappeared into the mysterious region of the kitchen. *CHAPTER VIII* *RISING SHADOWS*