Marchmont saw, though Blair did not, that she jested uneasily and reaped no pleasure, although she reaped amusement, from her clever recognition of her husband's style. She had spoken in much the same tone about the difference with Dick Benyon and the suspicions which Dick cast on "our sincerity." He came near to perceiving and understanding what was in her mind--what had been there as she watched Quisante sleeping. The first suggestion of ferreting out something had come from him, purely in the way of a cynical jeer, just because nobody would ever suspect him of seriously contemplating or taking part in such a thing. Well, May Quisante did not apparently feel quite so confident about her husband. Blair bustled off, with a parting mysterious hint that they must lose no time in preparing for the fray--it might begin any week now--and May's face relaxed into a more genuine smile. "He does enjoy it so," she explained. But Marchmont was not thinking of Blair. He asked her abruptly, "You'll go to Henstead and help him, I suppose?" "Of course. I shall be with him right through. He'll want all the help I can give him. It's everything to him to win this time." "Yes, I know." Her voice had become troubled again; she was very anxious for her husband's success; but was she anxious about something else too? "If I can help you, let me," he said as he rose to go. She gave him her hand and looked in his face. "I'm afraid that most likely I shouldn't be able to ask you," she said gravely. The answer, as she gave it, meant so much to him, and even seemed to admit so much, that he wondered at once at her insight into his thoughts and at her frankness in facing what she found there. For did she not in truth mean that she might want help most on some occasion when the loyalty he had himself approved would forbid her to reveal her distress to him or to seek his succour? He ventured, after an instant's hesitation, on one word. "After all," he said, "you can't trundle the world's wheelbarrow in white kid gloves; at least you soil them." "Then why trundle it?" she asked. "At any rate you needn't say that sort of thing. Leave that to Mr. Blair."