There were French cakes, toast cut in mathematically exact triangles. The aroma of the tea seemed to fill the room. They sat by the open window, an inlaid table spread with exquisitely drawn linen between them. She looked at the road, across the railings into the park, where an occasional carriage drove through the haze. She looked at Edred. The prison stain was completely gone. His diamond ring, the pin at his neck, all his indications of prosperity, pleased her. And yet she thought the diamonds ostentatious. If he had been a portly man, instead of a slim and elegant one, he would have been vulgar. She was always touched by externals--had a painful respect for the things money gave. In the midst of her intense happiness she paused to consider discreetly that, love apart, Edred was a more eligible husband than Jethro. She thought of Jethro--that side of him which had always jarred on her: his half-sheepish, half-surly air in the presence of strangers, his shy avoidance of women. Then she thought of his toilet--the striped tags of his thick boots, which were generally hanging out, the black suit, which he would speak of as his “best”; his week-day shirts of galatea; his best white ones, which he did not often wear because of the difficulty experienced by the old washerwoman in getting them up. She thought of his ridiculous neckties, of his huge, snuffy silk pocket-handkerchief, of the turnip-like repeater which had been his grandfather’s, and which he lugged out of his capacious pocket laboriously. She poured herself more tea from the Queen Anne silver pot. She poured another cup for Edred, feeling a delightful sense of being wifely as she did it. “We might have had some of Jeth’s jam,” he said, idly smiling at her. His eyes seemed to contract and glitter unnaturally with undisguised admiration. She was very flushed and triumphant, a little feverish and reckless with her mastery of him. Yet, all the same, because she was a woman of the world, and had been driven to consider her reputation, she began to wonder, as the gray haze in the park grew black, what suggestion he was going to make for the night. One could not walk out into the street, take a hansom, and drive to be married forthwith. He said, pushing his empty cup away and settling back in the chair: “I’ve been lucky. Everything I’ve touched has turned up trumps.” “The ruby mine----” “Pooh! That is only one thing. I’ve learnt, by very bitter experience, that it is as well to have plenty of irons in the fire.” “Is it a genuine concern? You won’t risk anything this time?” She put the question for his sake--for theirs. She did not wish him to fail, to suffer again. She wanted to be rich--safe--for the rest of her life. “As genuine as anything can be,” he returned evasively. “But don’t spoil yourself by being serious. The prettiest woman--and you are looking devilish pretty to-night, darling--can’t afford to be serious: it brings lines about the mouth.”