A mere rough sample of the conversation. It was not unlike others of the same sort on like occasions. But was Challis wrong in imagining that, this time, it was a little accentuated! Was it only his imagination, gathering suggestions from the atmosphere that his home had been that of self-denying endurance during his absence, and that his own selfish indulgences elsewhere were being actively forgiven for his sake? What had he done to deserve forgiveness? If he had known that he was incurring it, would he have committed the offence at all? Also he did feel that Marianne hadn't played fair. What could have been more genial than her send-off, three weeks ago?--more apparently genuine than her refusal to accompany her husband to Royd on the ground of a real dislike for Society? To be sure, a throb of conscience reminded him of a certain breath of relief--almost--that he drew at the decisiveness of this refusal. Had Marianne been sharp enough to see it? His instinct told him that a woman might have a sharp department in her mind on points of this sort, and yet make a poor show in logic and mental philosophy. The sense that he was a naughty boy that had been eating three-cornered jam-tarts, and giving no one else any, hung about him, and made him unlike himself. If only that abominable cabman had not spoiled the part he had sketched out for himself on his first arrival, one of exaggerated self-denunciation for his beastly selfishness, and tragi-comical commiseration for Marianne as Penelope or Andromeda! It would then have come so much easier to deliver that message from Judith Arkroyd. And now! Just look at _now_! Now, when he actually found himself fallen so low as to half-ask if he might smoke in the drawing-room! Not quite, of course; that would have been too absurd! But he said something or other, or Marianne would not have replied as she did. "As if I ever minded! How can you be so ridiculous!" This was good and lubricative. But she spoilt it by adding that there was the little ash-pan. Nevertheless, by the time the incense from her husband's cigar, and an atmosphere of consolatory coffee, were bringing back the flavour of a thousand and one post-prandial hours of peace in days gone by, the malignant influence of that cabman began to lose its force, and there was concession in the way she added: "I suppose you weren't allowed to smoke in the drawing-room at Boyd's--Royd's--whatever it was?" "Royd. Cigarettes--yes! Hardly cigars. At least, nobody did it. The young women smoked cigarettes." "Those sort of people do it now. At least, Charlotte Eldridge says so. _I_ don't know." "Wish you'd smoke, Polly Anne! Have a cigarette now." "Oh no!--I've tried often enough to know I don't like it. You must go away to some of your Grosvenor Squares if you're not happy smoking by yourself."