“Why, happily for all parties unconcerned,” she said, “the worst is over now, and no more nursing required for one while. As I told you just now, Honor--I must call you ‘Honor,’ you know--the Colonel is better--quite himself, indeed, I may say. Has gone out for the first time to-day since his illness. I expect him back every moment. Ah! there he is; I know his way of shutting the hall-door by this time. He never knocks, the Colonel doesn’t. Gentlemen always will have their latch-keys, you know,” she added playfully (a joke, by the way, which was lost upon the young wife, who had so much in the modern Gomorrah to learn and to unlearn); “and the Colonel, I suspect--there are secrets in all families--has been a bit of a rake; and--Ah, Colonel,” interrupting herself as the object of her complimentary remarks threw open the door _en maître_, and strode towards the sofa; “ah, Colonel, here you are! And here’s Honor come--looking so well; and--” He did not allow her to proceed, for, putting her obtruding figure with scant ceremony aside, he kissed his daughter (who had risen to greet him) with rather more than necessary warmth. The fervent salute, administered on both cheeks, brought the ever-ready crimson flush to Honor’s lovely face. It was a blush that owed its being not to the demonstrativeness of the paternal embrace, but to the unexpected presence of one whose advent had never failed in days gone by to call up that often false tell-tale witness. Close behind Colonel Norcott followed Arthur Vavasour, the man whose image still lingered in Honor Beacham’s memory--the agreeable, handsome profligate, who appeared in no way changed since in the grounds of Danescourt, she, nearly ten months before, had bidden him a not easily forgotten and rather emotional farewell. They shook hands, and at the touch of _his_, Honor’s colour deepened, and she bowed her head in very conscious shame that so it was. There are no outward evidences of internal emotion so apt to mislead, and that dangerously, as the simple and beautiful, yet alas too rare, effort of nature which is called a _blush_. It is very intelligible that so it must be. Men who, like Arthur Vavasour, live only (as they estimate living) in the light of women’s smiles--men who dearly delight in discovering proofs of their own power to please--will always see in a pretty woman’s heightened colour a tribute to their sure fascinations. Instinct--the instinct of self-preservation, bestowed for the protection of the weak--warned Honor, as it has warned other women before her, of the existence of this very popular delusion; and the premonition did not tend to moderate the carnation-hue that Arthur Vavasour gazed at with even more than the passionate admiration of the days gone by. Nor was his manner to her--the manner that she had always felt to be so winning--in any fashion altered; and when he spoke, his voice was as soft, and his words as full of gentle meaning.