The rest of the winter I was able to devote myself to Sibella, who grew more beautiful in my eyes every day. She was bewitchingly decadent, and her decadence was independent of extraneous aids to beauty. I was careful not to be seen too frequently with her in public, and permitted Sir Anthony Cross to do all the drudgery. Lionel was quite unsuspecting, and inasmuch as I never omitted an opportunity of obliging him I verily believe that the poor fool believed me to be attached to him. I well remember how one evening, when Grahame was present, Lionel became quite sentimental over our school days, and talked as if we had all three been the greatest of chums. A smile played round Grahame’s dignified mouth as his brother-in-law meandered on about “those dear old days.” “Do you remember when I was training for the mile, and had that accident?” Lionel asked. We both of us nodded. “That was a very mysterious affair,” he went on. “I could have sworn as I went down that I tripped over something which struck me across the leg.” “Imagination,” suggested Grahame. “I don’t know, but it has always seemed to me most mysterious.” “I don’t think it’s possible to account for sensations at such a moment as that,” I said, indifferently. Lionel went on with his reminiscences. He recalled the first day he had ever been to the Hallwards’, which, considering that he must have remembered how badly he and Sibella behaved to me on that day, was not a brilliant exhibition of tact. At last he concluded: “And now Sibella and I are married, and we are all jolly together.” Coming from anyone else the remark might have sounded jovial; coming from Lionel it sounded foolish. “Yes,” I said drily, “we are all jolly together.” For one moment Grahame looked at me curiously, but shrewdly suspecting that my liking for Lionel had not grown much with years, put down the emphasis in my voice to that fact. I was angry with myself for having made such a slip. Lionel was soon in the throes of an election struggle, a sudden death having removed a well-known party hack to a greater majority than it had ever been his lot to be numbered with on earth.