Jane Oglander, absorbed in the physical crisis through which was passing the friend with whom she was staying, became even to her lover infinitely remote; though Lingard liked to remind himself, now and again, that it was Jane who had given him his new, enchanting comrade and friend. Athena Maule appeared to Hew Lingard the most selfless human being he had ever known. And yet, each day, when the guests, the people she so kindly asked to meet him, were all gone, and when he and she were enjoying an hour of rest and solitude together, to which he had now learnt to look forward so eagerly, she was always ready to talk to him about herself. Soon there was no subject of conversation between them which held for Lingard so potent, so entrancing a lure. There came a day when the soldier, more moved, more secretly excited, more exhilarated than usual, was able to express to her something of what he felt. Among those who had been bidden to Rede Place was an old man, a Crimean veteran who in his day had enjoyed, though of course on a smaller scale, much the same kind of experience Hew Lingard was now passing through. The two had been allowed, by tacit consent, to have a considerable amount of talk together, and Lingard had been greatly touched and moved by the other's words of understanding praise, and appreciation, of the difficult, perilous task he had accomplished. Sure of her sympathy and understanding, he told Mrs. Maule all that the veteran's words had meant to him, and at once, as was her wont,--though he remained quite unconscious of it,--she brought the subject round to the personal, the intimate standpoint: "You don't know," she said softly, "what it means to me to know that you met that dear old man here." And that had given him his chance of saying what he felt each day more and more, namely that he owed everything, _everything_ to her,--to her thoughtful kindness and to her instinctive knowledge of what would at once please and move him. How amazed he would have been could he have seen into Athena's heart! She had thought it rather absurd that Lingard should care so much for praise uttered by such an unimportant person as the poor, broken old officer who led a quiet and rather eccentric existence on the edge of a lonely common some way from Rede Place. He had originally come into the neighbourhood in order to be near Mabel Digby's father, and Athena had never thought him to be of the slightest consequence,--indeed, she had only assented to his being asked to meet General Lingard because Mabel had earnestly begged that he might be. * * * * * Conscious hypocrisy is far rarer than the world is apt to believe, and only succeeds in its designs with those who are mentally ill-equipped. The women who work the most mischief in civilized communities are supreme egoists, and an egoist is never a conscious hypocrite.