That her husband thoroughly sympathised in her enjoyment she of course took for granted, and for some time nothing occurred to shake her in this happy belief. It was true to a great extent that he did so, though true in a sense that would have been perfectly incomprehensible to her had any one attempted to explain it. But after a little time Beauchamp began to get rather tired of Eugenia's untireableness. It is entertaining enough to act spectator to a country cousin's ecstasies, especially if the country cousin in question be a refined, intelligent, and very beautiful girl; but of this amusement, as of most others, Captain Chancellor began to find it was possible to have enough. Then he had a morbid horror of any approach to "gushingness," and there were times at which it appeared to him that, but for her grace and beauty, Eugenia might have fallen under the ban of this terrible charge. And most of all, perhaps, his young wife annoyed him more than once by asking him questions he was obliged to confess he could not answer-- questions about some "stupid old picture or other," which in reality his taste was far too uncultivated to admire, though he would, have shrunk from confessing to such a barbarism; or she would let her thoughts drift, back to the old days--days about which, English girl though she was, she had read, much and imagined more--and her eyes would sparkle and colour glow, and sometimes even a tear or two would make its unbidden appearance as she recalled in fancy the glittering old-world pageants, the tremendous tragedies, the extraordinary fluctuations of national weal and woe of which this Paris--wonderful, beautiful Paris-- had been the scene. And at such moments she would look to her companion for sympathy in her enthusiasm, would refer to him, perhaps, for more accurate information about the subject or event momentarily uppermost in her mind; and once, when with a little disappointment--arising not from the failure of the information, but from the evident want of sympathy, she turned away somewhat sadly, the few words, which escaped her, "I wish papa were here!" irritated Beauchamp more than he afterwards liked to remember, for his answer had been chilling in the extreme. "I am really not a walking biography or history, Eugenia," he had said. "And, besides, I think it is pedantic and affected of you to chatter so about such things. It's not at all in your line, I assure you." Afterwards he tried to soften what he had said. "I did not mean to speak unkindly to-day when we were at the Luxembourg," he began. "You know that I should never wish to do so, don't you, dearest? I must confess I have two especial _betes noires_, and I could not endure to see the least taint of either in my wife." "What are they?" asked Eugenia, quietly. "Learned women and gushing young ladies," he answered. "Now don't be hurt, dear. There is nothing of the kind about you really, only you see I want you to be _quite_ perfect."