"I can't see how they should. She has beauty, wealth, and position; a young husband who dotes on her,--Oh, you needn't grin; I saw him with her in the box." "Yes, and I saw him without her, but with Bligh and Winton, the two Clarks, who are _coryphées_ at Drury Lane, and Mdlle. Carambola from the cirque at Leicester Square, turning in to supper at Dubourg's. Now, then, what do you say to that?" "Nothing. Mitford told his wife he was going to supper with Bligh and Winton. I heard him." "Very likely; but you didn't hear him mention the female element. No, of course not." "Sir Charles Mitford being, I presume, a gentleman, that suggestion is simply absurd." "Pardon me, my dear Colonel Alsager, I never make any suggestion that can be called 'simply absurd.' The fact is, Alsager, that though I'm only, I suppose, five or six years older than you, I've seen a deal more of life." "Of which side of it?" "Well, the most interesting,--the worst, of course. While you've been mounting guard and saluting colours, and teaching bullet-headed recruits to form square, and all that kind of thing, I've been studying human nature." "How delightful for human nature!" "That may or may not be," said Lord Dollamore calmly, and without the smallest sign of irritation; "but this I know, that all boy-and-girl marriages invariably come to grief. A man must have his fling some time or other; if he does not have it before his marriage, he will after. And between ourselves, Alsager, this Mitford is a devilish bad egg. I've known of him all his life. He had a fast turn when he was a mere boy, and didn't stick at trifles to raise money, as you may have heard." "I know all about that; but--" "And do you think that, now that he has plenty of money and health and position, he won't go in for that style of pleasure which he formerly risked everything to obtain? Nonsense, my dear Alsager; _cela va sans dire_. Lady Mitford will have to run the gauntlet of society, as do most married women with loose husbands; and will certainly be more successful than most of her competitors." Laurence put down his cigar, and looking steadily at his companion, said, "I don't envy the man who could be blackguard enough to attempt to throw a shadow on such a woman's life." "Don't you?" said Lord Dollamore, as steadily returning the glance; "of course not." Then, in a somewhat lighter tone, he added, "By the way, have you seen the Hammonds lately?" A flush, noticeable even through the red bronze, rose on Laurence's cheeks; but before he could speak, a man who was sitting on the other side of Lord Dollamore cut into the conversation by saying, "Oh, by the way, there was a brother of Percy Hammond's dining here last week; Prothero asked me to meet him. He's a sporting parson, and a tremendous character. He told us he always knew when woodcock came in by the lesson for the day."