"Know his own wife's hand? Of course he would! But are we under any obligation to sup full of horrors on a day like this?" Her voice was that of indifference, dismissing an unpleasant topic. Challis slightly resented its placidity, which looked as if the horrors had been easily digested, at least. It seemed to him to do injustice to a sweetness of disposition he chose to consider inseparable from the beautiful eyelids at ease under a slight protest of raised brows--the beautiful lips that waited unclosed for an answer to their question. "What do you prefer me to talk about?" said he. "The crops? The weather?" "Nonsense, Scroop!" She paused in her walk, so that he had either to look round at her or show no wish to know why. "I suppose you must have guessed," she said, without logical continuity. A request for explanation would have been warranted. But Challis was in no mind for make-believe. He took her meaning, which he knew quite well, for granted. "I have had my suspicions," said he. "But I could not catechize, as you seemed so silent. Tell me now!... Which is it?--mother--father?--sister?... Is it Sibyl?--or the Bart?--or the _madre_?" The way in which these familiar designations were accepted as a matter of course showed how their relations of last September had defined and strengthened themselves. "All three. At least--I ought to be fair--my father least of all! Indeed I believe that if an instance could be found of any lady of William the Conqueror's taking part in a Court performance, he would concede the point altogether. Has he spoken to you about it?... Well!--of course he wouldn't do that. But has he 'approached the subject'? Of course, that is what he would do--'approach the subject.'" "No--no one has said a word about it. But I guessed, soon after I came down, that the play was doomed. I did not at first suppose it was your family, as a matter of course. I thought you might have settled to throw it up on your own account." She made a sort of impatient disclaimer--a head-shake that flung that possibility aside, and forgot it. But she said nothing, and he continued: "There was a row, I suppose? Don't tell me more about it than you like. Don't tell me anything if you...." "I prefer to tell you. Who is there that I can talk to about it if not to you?" This was the soul-brush again; and again Challis's inner consciousness gasped at the choice he had to make between giving way to a luxury, a dangerous intoxication, and attempting to freeze the conversation down to a safe temperature.