Meanwhile Dauphin’s struggles were of another order. It was the hour of the day which he was accustomed to spend with Collingham, and to spend it undisturbed. In this lovely spring weather they strolled about the gardens, peeped into the hotbeds, dropped in aimlessly at the stable or the garage, exchanged odds and ends of observation with the men working around the place. After this, they returned to the house, where, upstairs, in a comfortably, masculine bedroom, the man made changes in his outer fur, while the setter, less concerned about trifles, stretched himself out on the floor and blinked. It was a restful time, suited to a mind which after the stormier years was growing more and more content with material prosperity, and to a heart that was always content with its master’s contentment. But, of late, poor Dauphin had been painfully buffeted by waves of agitation. They emanated from his master, like circlets round a stone thrown into a pool. When his master’s wife came into the scene the conflict of forces was terrible. She was not straight with her lord. She was using him, hoodwinking him. Dauphin would have sprung at her throat had it not been for the knowledge that, were he to do so, he would be beaten and kicked by the object of his defense. No; you couldn’t deal with human beings sensibly. The wise thing to do was to stretch on the floor and pretend to snooze while they fought their own fight. They didn’t precisely fight their own fight just now. Collingham merely accepted terms. He was picking up his evening jacket from the bed on which his valet had laid it out. Junia, dressed exactly to the mean between too little and too much suited for a family dinner, had crossed the threshold of his room, where she stood adjusting a fall of lace. "As I told you yesterday after she went away, she’s just what you’d expect from such a girl, certainly no better and possibly a little worse. She’s a mousey little thing, with a veneer of modesty; but ’mercenary’ isn’t the word. It’s just a question of money, Bradley; and if you’ll leave it to me to deal with—" "Leave it to you to deal with—to the tune of twenty-five thousand dollars," he said, morosely, pulling his coat into shape round his shoulders as he looked into the long glass. "Well, that’s only half what it might have been. I thought at one time that we might have to make it fifty thousand—" He was not sure, but he thought she finished with the word "again." If so it was uttered too softly for him to be obliged to take note of it, so that he merely picked up a hairbrush and put another touch to his hair. She was now at work on the great string of pearls which, to keep them alive, she wore even in domestic privacy. Her object was to get the famous Roehampton pearl, from the late Lady Roehampton’s collection, which had been the seal of her reconciliation with Bradley fifteen years earlier—to get this jewel right in the center of her person, to make the string symmetric.