Germaine had now lashed himself into the certainty that he was that most miserable and pitiable of civilised beings, the trusting, kindly, nay more, adoring husband, whose wife betrays him with his friend. When others had laughed, as men have laughed, and will ever laugh, at similar ironic juxtapositions of fate, Germaine had remained grave, for he had a sensitive heart--a heart which made him realise something of what lay beneath such tales. Now he told himself that so no doubt he himself was being laughed at by the many, pitied--the thought stung deeper--by the few. As he at last turned into Curzon Street, and so was within a few yards of his house, it struck two o'clock. By now they must all be waiting for him, and Bella would be angry, as angry as she ever allowed her sweet-tempered nature to be. But Germaine told himself savagely that he didn't care,--he was sorry to be so near home, to know that in a few moments he would have to command himself, to pretend light-hearted indifference before a crowd of people most of whom he now feared--ay, feared and hated, for they must all have long suspected what he only now knew to be the truth. Some one touched him. He started violently. It was his sister, Fanny, pouring out a confused stream of apologies and explanations. He stared at her in silence, and she thought he was so seriously annoyed, so "put out" that he could not trust himself to speak. But though, as they stood there face to face, he dimly realised what his sister was trying to say, how she was trying to explain her failure to keep her appointment with him in the Park, Germaine could not have told, had his life depended on it, the nature of her excuse. Together they walked side by side to the door of his house, and, as he rang the bell, as he knocked, he remembered with a pang of jealous anguish that Bella had asked him, when they moved into this house, not to use a latch-key in the daytime; she had explained to him that to do so prevented the servants keeping up to the mark, and he had obeyed her, as he always did obey her. This trifle made his anger, for the moment his impotent anger, become colder, clarified. It was only an hour later, but at last they were all gone, these people whom Oliver Germaine had now begun to hate and suspect, each in their different measure, women and men. Everyone had left, that is, excepting Henry Buck and Fanny; and Fanny was just going away, Oliver seeing her off at the front door.