“At least,” he thought, “she shall live in peace. All I can now do to please her is to keep out of her way and not disgust her by constantly reminding her of her bondage.” So, though his whole existence was full of her, though her slightest wish was immediately, though unobtrusively, attended to, he yet left her to herself, maintaining an appearance of such indifference to her and adsorption in his independent pursuits, that the girl was almost to be excused for imagining that Geoffrey was “more of a farmer than a man,” incapable of very refined or long-lived affection, and that, after all, so far as he was concerned, what had happened did not so much matter. “He would have been pretty sure to get tired of me before long in any case,” was the reflection with which she threw off all sense of responsibility with respect to him, and stifled for the time the pangs of reproach for the blight which through her had fallen on his sunny life. There was little society of any desirable kind in the neighbourhood of the Manor Farm. The other side of the county was much more sociable, but about Brackley there were few resident county families—the great man of the place a permanent absentee. Besides which the Baldwins’ position had been a somewhat anomalous one, lying rather on the border lands, for the father’s status as banker in Mallingford naturally connected him with the little town, while at the same time it induced a species of acquaintance with the out-lying districts. Geoffrey’s rooted aversion from earliest childhood to anything in the shape of office or desk, or indeed to indoor occupation of any kind, had led to the removal to the Manor Farm some time before the old man’s death. Hunting, shooting, and so on, with the sons of the few squires in the neighbourhood, had brought about the sort of bachelor friendliness between him and these families which was pleasant enough so far as it went, but committed the other side to nothing in respect of the future Mrs. Baldwin. Had he married quite in his own sphere, or slightly beneath him, he would have sunk, as a Benedick, into peaceful obscurity. But when it was known that his bride, though poor, was a daughter of the well-known Hartford Vere, himself a cadet of one of the “best” Brentshire families, mammas began to think they must really call at the Farm, and “show a little attention to her, poor young thing!” To which disinterested amiability on the part of their spouses, papas, being in general more liberal-minded in such matters, made, of course, no objection. So Marion received some visitors, of whom the Copleys of the Wood were the only ones in whom she felt the slightest interest. A moderate amount of invitations to dreary dinner-parties, or still more trying “candle visits,” followed. Geoffrey thought it right to accept them, so, feeling that to her, change of scene was but the replacing of one kind of dulness by another, Marion agreed to his decision, and they went.