Germaine believed that he had carried himself well. True, Uvedale had said to him, "Feeling a bit chippy, old chap?" and twice he had noticed Joliffe's rather cold grey eyes fixed attentively on his face, but under the chatter of the women--Jenny Arabin was a great talker and in a harmless sort of way a great gossip, always knowing everybody's business better than they did themselves--under cover of the women's chatter, he had been able to remain silent, and, whatever the two men present had suspected,--one of the two forced thereto by his own conscience,--Bella had certainly noticed nothing. She had not even seen, as his sister had seen, that Oliver looked tired and unlike himself. Why, just now Fanny had spoken to him solicitously about his health--blundering, tactless, Fanny had actually asked him if anything special were worrying him! He shut the door on his sister, and crossed the little hall. The time had now come when he must have it out with Bella. Then, suddenly, there came over Germaine a feeling as if he had been living through a hideous nightmare. If that were indeed so, then his whole life would not be too long to secretly atone to Bella for his horrible suspicion. It seemed suddenly monstrous that he should suspect Bella on the word of a Mrs. Bliss. His wife had a right, after all, to pay her dressmaker in bank-notes if the fancy seized her. Sometimes when Bella did something that he, Oliver, did not like or approve, she explained that her mother had done the same thing, and the excuse always irritated him, left him without an answer. Supposing that Bella were now to tell him that the late Mrs. Arabin, whose reputation for a certain daring liveliness and exceeding beauty still lingered in the ever-shifting naval and military society where he had first met his wife, always paid her bills in notes and cash rather than by cheque--what then? He walked up the staircase; Henry Buck passed him coming down. Germaine's eyes rested on the awkward figure, the plain, good-natured face. Rabbit was certainly lacking in tact; he always outstayed all their other guests, and he never knew when Bella was tired, but still he was the one human being present at the little lunch party at whom Oliver had been able to look without a feeling of unease. Slowly he turned the painted china knob of the drawing-room door. Bella was standing before the Sheraton bureau which had been the gift of Peter Joliffe. She had apparently been putting something away; Germaine heard the click of the lock. She turned round quickly, and her husband thought there was a look of constraint on her face. "Why, Oliver," she said, "I thought you were going out with Fanny this afternoon!" "With Fanny?" he stammered, "I never thought of doing such a thing." "But you're not going to stay in, are you?"