He had nearly finished dressing when his wife came into his room. She talked a little, but had obviously nothing very much to say. He was suddenly conscious that he avoided looking at her. He busied himself over his tie, his shirt; it was not, he told himself angrily, that he was ashamed of facing her. After all, why should he be? All that he had done was to kiss another woman, and most men had done that in their time. He was no saint and, for that matter, neither was she. Nobody was a saint; but he was uncomfortable, most certainly uncomfortable. Looking into the glass as he brushed his hair, he caught sight of her staring at him in a strange way, as though she were trying to make up her mind about something. Puzzled—puzzled—puzzled about what? Perhaps it was just possible that she too was just discovering that she had missed something in all these years. Perhaps she too was suddenly wondering whether she had got everything from life that she wanted; perhaps her mind was groping back to days when there did seem to be other things, when there were, most obviously, other people who had found something that she had never even searched for. The thought touched him strangely. After all, what if there was a chance of starting again? Lord! what a fool he was to talk like that! Didn’t he know that in another two hours’ time he would be with the other woman, his pulses beating to a riotous tune that she, his wife, could never teach him; you couldn’t cure the faults, the mistakes, the omissions of twenty years in three weeks. Dinner that night was of the pleasantest. Tony was at his very best. He seemed to have recovered all his lost spirits. That white, tense look had left his face, the strain had gone out of his eyes; even the waiters could not keep back their smiles at his laughter. They discussed the hour of departure and Tony did not turn a hair. Mrs. Lester glanced for an instant at Maradick, but that was all. “I’m afraid I shall have to go up on Thursday night,” said Lester. “One’s publishers, you know, need continual looking after, and if I don’t see them on Friday morning it may be some time before I get a chance again. But I’ll leave my wife in your hands, Lady Gale. I know she’ll be safe enough.” “Oh! we’ll look after her, Lester,” said Tony, laughing; “won’t we, Milly? We’ll look after you all the time. I’ll constitute myself your special knight-errant, Milly. You shall want for nothing so long as I am there.” “Thank you, Tony,” said Mrs. Lester. It was a fine enough night for them all to go into the garden, and very soon Maradick and Mrs. Lester were alone. It was all about him once again, the perfume that she used, the rustle of her dress, the way that her hair brushed his cheek. But behind it, in spite of himself, he saw his wife’s face in the mirror, he saw Tony, he saw the tower, and he felt the wind about his body. She bent over him and put her arms about his neck; but he put them back.