They had been now between two and three months at Halswood; the weeks had at the very first passed quickly enough, for Eugenia had succeeded in filling them with a succession of petty interests. Captain Chancellor was very well pleased with her, on the whole. She had proved more submissive than he had anticipated, though a great part of the credit of this satisfactory state of things was doubtless due to his own judicious management. He had always had his own theories as to the proper way of controlling and training the opposite sex, and had often been contemptuous on the subject of unhappy marriages. "Unhappy fiddlesticks," he would declare, "it's all his own fault. He should have given her to understand once for all at the start who was to be master, and he would have had no more trouble." The trouble that had fallen to his own share he owned to himself had certainly not been great, and the proof of the pudding being generally allowed to be in the eating, he felt pleasantly conscious of his own success. There was only one thing about his wife that ever seriously annoyed him--her spirits were not of late what they had been; certainly, some amount of repose and reserve of manner had been wanting in her at first, and he was pleased to see how quickly she had, at a hint or two from him, set herself to acquire it; but then, again, there had been a great charm in her girlish gaiety and graceful merriment. "I never heard any woman laugh better than Eugenia," he thought. "Most women laugh so atrociously, that I wish it was made penal, but she laughs charmingly." Then he wondered why of late he had so seldom heard that sweet, soft, bright sound. "She can't be dull," he said to himself, "we have had a fair amount of variety since we came here. Besides, catch a woman being dull and not complaining of it! And if there is anything she wants, she would have been sure to ask for it." He firmly believed himself the most indulgent of husbands, and so, in a certain practical sense, perhaps he was. He "grudged her nothing," though, indeed, her tastes continued so simple, that her own allowance from her father promised more than to cover her whole personal expenses; he never went away from home without bringing her some costly present when he came back--the first time, it had been a bracelet of great value. Eugenia had thanked him for it warmly, but then, eyeing it with some misgiving, had said something about its being too good for her. "I don't feel as if I liked wearing such splendid things, Beauchamp," had been her words. "It hardly seems consistent with--" "With what?" he had asked, irritated already.