"I will play the air once more," she said, taking up the guitar again. "It is very simple, but wonderfully sweet. Now listen, and perhaps the words will come to me." But they did not come. Then she sang one of our old favourite ballads, and when that was ended, I begged her to take off her bonnet and stay to dinner. "Aunt Baldock will be distracted," she told me. But there was an unspoken pleading in my face that must have gone to her heart. Perhaps she guessed that I had some special reason for wishing her to stay that evening. And I had indeed a special reason. For the first time in my life, I shrank from sitting down to a tête-à-tête meal with my husband. Any one who is intimately acquainted with the ways of men must know that they are never more unpleasant than when they are acting from a sense of duty. I could fancy the lofty moral air with which Ronald would seat himself at our humble board. I pictured the virtuous resignation in his manner when he ate his roast mutton, knowing all the while that William Greystock would have given him salmon a la maître d' hotêl and beef olives. I could imagine the magnanimous way in which he would try to get up a little conversation with his wife, thus letting her see that an aggrieved man does not always bear malice, but is capable of making the best of his condition. But if Marian Bailey were with us, everything would be changed for the better. She had travelled; she was musical; she had the gift of talking pleasantly without being positively brilliant. In short, she possessed the useful gift (more to be desired than the ten talents) of putting people into good humour with themselves and their surroundings. Unselfish, even-tempered, sound in health and in heart, Marian Bailey was born to be a blessing to herself and to her friends; and when she had consented to stay with me, I could await Ronald's coming with cheerfulness. He came in, prepared to be just the man I had expected him to be, but Marian's frank manner won his heart at once. I left them together, and went to have a short conference with nurse, who was always good at an emergency. The result of that conference was that we turned our little dinner into a sort of festival, and Ronald gave me an approving glance across the table. [Illustration] CHAPTER IX. GOING OUT. THE charm of Marian's presence seemed to linger with us after she was gone. It gratified me to hear Ronald's praises of my friend; he had enjoyed her conversation and her singing, and looked forward with pleasure to the thought of spending an evening in Mrs. Baldock's house in Curzon Street. I had tact enough to tell him that she had admired the artistic decorations of our little room—especially the tambourine. "Ah," said Ronald, sinking back complacently into his favourite corner of the sofa, "I might have done something in the art line with proper training."