He was no fool; he was, on the contrary, a shrewd, clever, quick-witted man of the world and it was impossible to shut his eyes to the trouble. He thought of Bella as she was when he had first married her; he recalled their courtship, her pretty half shy, half tender ways--the girlish prettiness which time had turned into shame. She had left a scrap of lace on his table for her throat or her veil--Heaven knew what--and his eyes grew blurred and dim as he gazed at it. He repeated mentally phrases which had fallen from her, piecing them together and trying to weave the pattern of her life out of the fragments. She had changed pathetically. She had acquired the manner that her sister used to have, and which he had so strenuously objected to--the slangy, devil-may-care tone, the total absence of which in the old days had made his little sweetheart so conspicuously different from her environment. She wore now the impress of evil, from her Regent Street hat to her Paris gown. Manifestly she had risen in her vocation, but he knew that her salary alone had never supplied the costume or the rings, and his heart ached. That night he sat at the Duchess of Huddersfield's table facing his _fiancee_, and for the first time he wondered if sang-froid or perfect equanimity were all that a man such as himself might desire. She was, as Bella had put it, "One of his own class--a lady," which she had never been, poor Bella! but he did wonder just a little how much of real heart beat under the dainty laces that shrouded Lady Ethel's bosom. He had reflected once and not so long ago that that portion of a woman's anatomy was superfluous, but he wavered in his belief now. He could stake his professional honour, his hopes of eternity--of--everything--on the absolute purity of this girl; nothing would ever tempt Lady Ethel to swerve ever so little from the path of rectitude and decorum. The cold, proud patrician face spoke for itself, and yet--he was in a brown study when the voice of his prospective mother-in-law brought him out of the clouds. "And now," she said in a significant tone and with a glance full of meaning, "now I suppose you young people have lots to talk about, and will forgive me if I run away." And the silken draperies swept themselves across the floor and the door closed softly upon her Grace. Ethel lay back in a low, lounging chair with a big ostrich feather fan in her hand, and she looked up expectantly into her lover's face. There was nothing else for it, and he took the plunge valiantly--and with precisely the correct amount of maidenly hesitancy, Lady Ethel named a day for their marriage. And then--somehow there seemed nothing more to be said; each sat silent. Sir John felt rather than saw his companion yawn behind her fan, and realised desperately that he must break the silence. "Ethel," he said gently; "I am old compared with yourself, and grave and sad even beyond my years; are you sure I can make your future happy?"