“Well, you’re a lucky chap.” “What do you mean?” “Mustn’t I discuss the matter? Tell me to shut up, and I will.” “You know I will discuss anything with you.” He gave me an affectionate look. “Are you struck, Israel?” “All of a heap.” I always adopted a fresh, breezy way of talking with Grahame. I think that is why he believes in my innocence to this day, and also why he is suffering so much. He never saw the corners of my character, although he had known me so many years. I always appeared to him frank and affectionate. “She’ll suit you better than Sibella would have done.” Had I been without the ambitions I was possessed of, Miss Gascoyne would have done nothing of the kind. Sibella’s decadent temperament would have furnished me with far more entertainment. But Edith Gascoyne was on the road to my objective. She was the most natural mistress in the world for Hammerton Castle. “It’s all rot my thinking of such a thing,” I said, true to the character in which I instinctively appeared before Grahame. “She’s got money of her own, and I’m a beggarly stockbroker’s clerk with three hundred and fifty a year.” “Judging by Mr. Gascoyne’s manner, I should say he meant you to be a little more than that one of these days.” “Oh, I’m not such a hypocrite as to pretend that it doesn’t look as if he meant to do something for me, but I may have ever so long to wait till then.” “Don’t you make any money on your own account?” “Oh, a bit—nothing to speak of.” Grahame must have mentioned Miss Gascoyne to Sibella, because the next time I called she asked me why I had never spoken of her. “I don’t know, I’m sure,” I answered, carelessly. I was glad that Grahame had saved me the trouble of breaking the fact of her existence to Sibella. I was on perfectly good terms with the latter now, and she had quite overcome any scruples about deceiving “poor Lionel.” She had in fact not known her own decadence till I had exploited it for her. She was revenged by my becoming intensely jealous of her. After all, she was meeting daily a great number of men who were willing to dance attendance on her till further notice, and it was impossible and unnatural that she should not find some of them attractive, and having been taught infidelity she might profit only too well by the instruction. I behaved with the greatest discretion. I had no mind to have all my plans upset by a divorce case. Mr. Gascoyne would inevitably have shown me the door, whilst my chances with Miss Gascoyne would have disappeared entirely. No, if I could not give up so delirious a vice as Sibella it behoved me to be very careful, and I think I can flatter myself that Lionel never had the least suspicion. I suppose a guilty wife must always be in dread of disclosing her secret in the hours of sleep, like the lady in the opera, but I don’t think Sibella was sufficiently disturbed by the consciousness of sin to have her very sound slumbers interrupted.