He looked at her inquiringly, anticipating her acquiescence. In his expression the ideal and impersonal quality that constituted his peculiar charm was now apparent, and suggested an inward exaltation, as if he had gained a victory over himself and had made an honourable amend. Leigh, watching her with tense emotion, saw that she was deeply impressed, and he seemed to read the record of her thoughts in the shadows that came and went within her eyes. She was weighing her husband's qualities and possibilities in the scales of this unexpected opinion, and the decision hung suspended in the balance. As he divined her secret struggle and realised that she might go back to the man who did not love her, who wished to use her for his own advancement, he suffered an agony of jealousy that was well-nigh insupportable. For a few moments she delayed to answer, toying with her fork in thoughtful abstraction. In fact, her love for the young astronomer beside her was contending with the old desire to control her husband and to make him a figure in the world. In the inmost recesses of her heart she knew that she no longer loved Emmet, and that they could never wholly meet. What she did not, perhaps, so frankly own was the fact that she had found too late the man she could have loved and for whom she should have waited. With him she had common social experiences and religious traditions, and time had taught her the value of these things she had once imagined she despised. But, after all, it was the right man against the wrong man, irrespective of such considerations. Now that Emmet was mayor, she found she did not care; the prize was an apple of Sodom in her hand. He had even lost the picturesqueness which appeared to be his in another sphere, without gaining in compensation the things that were Leigh's by inheritance. The argument went against him now, if that could be called an argument which was only a question of love. She looked up finally with a smile that seemed to indicate indifference, or the weary shelving of a long vexed question. "Perhaps you are right," she answered. "I 'm sure I don't presume to say." Cardington rose to his feet abruptly, and his glance seemed one of judgment upon her. "A scandalous proceeding!" he broke out. "This night's work was a scandalous proceeding." Her startled flush arrested him, and his tone attained a sudden jocularity. "Well, I must leave you here to fight it out among yourselves. I have a piece of work that is calling loudly to me from the hill. Good-night!" He paid his bill, and strode away without another word. "I never knew a man with such a range of learning," Leigh said; "he makes the rest of us seem like ignoramuses."