Will Deverill saw but little of her. ’Twas better so, he knew, and kinder so for Linnet. Once or twice that year, however, he supped after the theatre in the Strand with “the Hausbergers,” as he had learned to call them. On all these occasions, he noticed, Andreas watched his wife close. “_One_ glass of champagne, Linnet; you remember, last time, when you dined at the Mowbrays’, you took _two_ glasses, and you sang next day very much less well for it”; or else—“If I were you, Linnet, I wouldn’t touch that lobster. It disagreed with you once, and I noticed in the evening one or two of your high notes were decidedly not so clear or so sharp as usual.” “But, Andreas,” Linnet answered, on one such occasion, “I’m sure it doesn’t hurt me. I _must_ take _something_. I’ve hardly eaten a single mouthful yet, and to-night I’m so hungry.” “It does you no harm to be hungry,” Andreas answered, philosophically. “Nobody ever reproached himself afterwards for having eaten too little. A taste of something to eat, after playing a trying part like Melinda, before you go to bed, helps you to sleep sound, and keeps you well and healthy; but a square meal at this hour can’t be good for anybody. It interferes with rest; and what interferes with rest, tells, of course, upon the voice—which is very serious. You may have a bit of that sweetbread, if you like—no; that’s a great deal too much; half that quantity, if you please, Mr Florian. Pull your woollen thing over your shoulder, so, Linnet; there’s a draught from that door! I can’t have you getting as hoarse as a frog to-night, with the Prince and Princess coming to hear you on Monday!” “Why on earth does she stand it?” Florian asked of Will afterwards, as they walked home together down the unpeopled Strand. “I can’t make it out. There she’s earning Heaven only knows how much a night, and filling the treasury; yet she allows this fellow to bully her and badger her like this; to dictate to her how much she’s to eat and to drink; to make her whole life one perpetual torment to her. Why doesn’t she rise and strike for freedom, I wonder? He’d have to come to terms; she’s too useful to him, you see, for him to risk a quarrel with her.” “She’s too good—that’s where it is,” Will responded, with a tinge of stifled sadness in his voice; “and, besides, she doesn’t care for him.” “Of course she doesn’t,” Florian answered, airily. “How could she, indeed!—a mass of selfishness like him!—so mean, so sordid! But that only makes it all the stranger she should ever put up with it. If she doesn’t love him, why on earth does she permit him to dictate to her as he does—to order her and domineer over her?”