He put his hands against her elbows and kissed her, rather clumsily, owing to the gloom, between her nose and her mouth. She did not shrink back, but accepted the embrace quite insensibly. The contact of his moustache and of his lips, and his slight, pleasant masculine odour, produced no effect on her whatever. "Why are you sitting here? Look here, I've signed the transfer of those Continental shares, and paid the cheque! So it's domino, now!" Between the engagement and the marriage there had been an opportunity of purchasing three thousand pounds' worth of preference shares in the Brighton Hotel Continental Limited, which hotel was the latest and largest in the King's Road, a vast affair of eight storeys and bathrooms on every floor. The chance of such an investment had fascinated George. It helped his dreams and pointed to the time when he would be manager and part proprietor of a palace like the Continental. Hilda being very willing, he had sold her railways shares and purchased the hotel shares, and he knew that he had done a good thing. Now he possessed an interest in three different establishments, he who had scarcely been in Brighton a year. The rapid progress, he felt, was characteristic of him. Hilda kept silence, for the sole reason that she could think of no words to say. As for the matter of the investment, it appeared to her to be inexpressibly uninteresting. From under the lashes of lowered eyes she saw his form shadowily in front of her. "You don't mean to say Sarah's been making herself disagreeable already!" he said. And his tone was affectionate and diplomatic, yet faintly ironical. He had perceived that something unusual had occurred, perhaps something serious, and he was anxious to soothe and to justify his wife. Hilda perfectly understood his mood and intention, and she was reassured. "Hasn't Sarah told you?" she asked in a harsh, uncontrolled voice, though she knew that he had not seen Sarah. "No; where is she?" he inquired patiently. "It's Louisa," Hilda went on, with the sick fright of a child compelled by intimidation to affront a danger. Her mouth was very dry. "Oh!" "She lost her temper and made a fearful scene with Sarah, on the stairs; she said the most awful things." George laughed low, and lightly. He guessed Louisa's gift for foul insolence and invective. "For instance?" George encouraged. He was divining from Hilda's singular tone that tact would be needed. "Well, she said you'd got a wife living in Devonshire." There was a pause. "And who'd told her that?" "Florrie." "_In_deed!" muttered George. Hilda could not decide whether his voice was natural or forced. Then he stepped across to the door, and opened it. "What are you going to do to her?" Hilda questioned, as it were despairingly. He left the room and banged the door. "It's not true," Hilda was beginning to say to herself, but she seemed to derive no pleasure from the dawning hope of George's innocence.