Their counsellor, the complacent Enemy, was in no sense immune to the blandishments of the climate. His tremendous vitality waned; he slowly drifted into the current with his fellows, although not beside them. For some unaccountable reason, he held himself aloof from the men and women that his charges were fighting. He met the two lawyers often, but nothing passed between them that could have been regarded as the slightest breach of trust. He lived like a rajah in his shady bungalow, surrounded by the luxuries of one to whom all things are brought indivisible. If he had any longing for the society of women of his own race and kind, he carefully concealed it; his indifference to the subtle though unmistakable appeals of the two gentlewomen in the château was irritating in the extreme. When he deliberately, though politely, declined their invitation to tea one afternoon, their humiliation knew no bounds. They had, after weeks of procrastination, surrendered to the inevitable. It was when they could no longer stand out against the common enemy--Tranquillity! Lord Deppingham and Bobby Browne suffered in silence; they even looked longingly toward the bungalow for the relief that it contained and refused to extend. Lady Deppingham and Mrs. Browne should not be misunderstood by the reader. They loved their husbands--I am quite sure of that; but they were tired of seeing no one else, tired of talking to no one else. Moreover, in support of this one-sided assertion, they experienced from time to time the most melancholy attacks of jealousy. The drag of time hung so heavily upon them that any struggle to cast it off was immediately noticeable. If Mrs. Browne, in plain despair, went off for a day's ride with Lord Deppingham, that gentleman's wife was sick with jealousy. If Lady Agnes strolled in the moonlit gardens with Mr. Browne, the former Miss Bate of Boston could scarcely control her emotions. They shed many tears of anguish over the faithlessness of husbands; tears of hatred over the viciousness of temptresses. Their quarrels were fierce, their upbraidings characteristic, but in the end they cried and kissed and "made up"; they actually found some joy in creating these little feuds and certainly there was great exhilaration in ending them.