"Of course I feel. I have had something to do with my life, and I have done this with it! Two men have honoured me with their choice, and out of the two I have chosen--Mr. Houghton. I comfort myself by telling myself that I did right;--and I did do right. But the comfort is not very comforting." Still he sat looking at the fire. He knew that it was open to him to get up and swear to her that she still had his heart. She could not be angry with him as she had said as much to himself. And he almost believed at the moment that it was so. He was quite alive to the attraction of the wickedness, though, having a conscience, he was aware that the wickedness should, if possible, be eschewed. There is no romance in loving one's own wife. The knowledge that it is a duty deadens the pleasure. "I did not mean to say all this," she exclaimed at last, sobbing. "Adelaide!" he said. "Do you love me? You may love me without anything wrong." "Indeed I do." Then there was an embrace, and after that he hurried away, almost without another word. CHAPTER XIX. RATHER "BOISTEROUS." "After all, he's very dreary!" It was this that Adelaide Houghton spoke to herself as soon as Lord George had left her. No doubt the whole work of the interview had fallen on to her shoulders. He had at last been talked into saying that he loved her, and had then run away frightened by the unusual importance and tragic signification of his own words. "After all, he's very dreary." Mrs. Houghton wanted excitement. She probably did like Lord George as well as she liked any one. Undoubtedly she would have married him had he been able to maintain her as she liked to be maintained. But, as he had been unable, she had taken Mr. Houghton without a notion on her part of making even an attempt to love him. When she said that she could not afford to wear a heart,--and she had said so to various friends and acquaintances,--she did entertain an idea that circumstances had used her cruelly, that she had absolutely been forced to marry a stupid old man, and that therefore some little freedom was due to her as a compensation. Lord George was Lord George, and might, possibly, some day be a marquis. He was at any rate a handsome man, and he had owned allegiance to her before he had transferred his homage to that rich little chit Mary Lovelace. She was incapable of much passion, but she did feel that she owed it to herself to have some revenge on Mary Lovelace. The game as it stood had charms sufficient to induce her to go on with it; and yet,--after all, he was dreary.