“Lady Florencecourt--” He paused. George remained silently facing him, rather ashamed of himself. The Colonel continued more glibly--“Lady Florencecourt may be surpassed in amiability, I admit that. But she is at least above reproach, infirmity of temper in a wife counting rather on the right side of the balance, as the due of uncompromising virtue.” “But, Colonel,” hazarded George apologetically, being moved to some compassion by these outlines of a gloomy domestic picture, “you would not expect my wife to be yet as uncompromising as Lady Florencecourt?” “Isn’t it going rather far when she cannot pass a week’s visit to a country-house without providing herself with a retinue of young men?” “Oh, Dicky Wood!” said George cheerfully. “That’s all right; it is the purest good-nature her wanting to get poor Wood out of town now. He’s got into--” He stopped. Lord Florencecourt was his friend, but he was also his commanding officer, and Dicky’s. He hesitated, grew red, and muttered something about retrenchment and pulling up. But he had said too much, and under promise of his communication being treated confidentially, he had to finish it. “I’m as sorry about it as I can be, and so’s my wife; for we both like Wood, as everybody does. But some wretched woman has got hold of him--you know, sir, he is well off, and as generous as sun in the tropics, and so we want to get him away, if we can persuade him to go. And he hasn’t had any leave for ever so long.” The Colonel listened gravely, and when the account was over he spoke in a rather less hard tone. “H’m, if the young fool has once begun on that tack, you may as well let him be squeezed dry by one as by another,” he said grimly. “And a young gentleman fond of that kind of society will be a nice sort of companion for your wife.” His tone still implied also that the wife would be “a nice sort of companion for him.” “But, sir, Wood isn’t like an ordinary fellow; he’s such a gentle, open-hearted creature, it quite knocks one over to see him made a meal of--and by a woman like Chloris White!” Lauriston’s first impression, on noting the sudden contraction of his hearer’s face into greater rigidity than ever, at this contemptuous mention by name of one of the most notorious persons in London, was that he had “put his foot in it.” The Colonel’s austerity might not be so thorough-going as he had imagined. The next moment he was undeceived as Lord Florencecourt’s eyes moved slowly round, as if by an effort, till they rested on his face. “God help the lad! Do your best for him, Lauriston, if you will; pulling a man out of the hug of a boa-constrictor’s d----d easy work compared to it!” Lord Florencecourt shivered, and looked at the windows as he got up and walked away, so little himself that he began trying to smoke a cigar he had not lighted. It was then that by an inspiration an explanation of his late extraordinary conduct occurred to Lauriston.