And while ‘society’ thus talked, Delicia worked, coining money for her husband to spend as he listed. She reserved her household expenses, and took a moderate share of her earnings for her own dress, but all the rest was his. He drove ‘tandem’ in the Row with two of the most superb horses ever seen in that fashionable thoroughfare. In the early spring mornings he was seen cantering up and down on a magnificent Arab, which for breed and action was the envy of princes. He had his own four-in-hand coach, which he drove to Ranelagh, Hurlingham, and the various race meetings of the year, with a party of ‘select’ people on top—the kind of ‘select’ whom Delicia never knew or cared to know, consisting of actresses, betting men, ‘swells about town,’ and a sprinkling of titled dames, who had frankly thrown over their husbands in order to drink brandy privately, and play the female Don Juan publicly. Occasionally a ‘candid friend,’ moved by a laudable desire to make mischief between husband and wife, would arrive, full-armed at all points with gossip, and would casually remark to Delicia,— ‘Oh, by the way, I saw your husband at Ranelagh the other day with—well!—some _rather_ odd people!’ To which Delicia would reply tranquilly, ‘Did you? I hope he was amusing himself.’ Then with a straight, half-disdainful look of her violet eyes at the intruding meddler, she would add, ‘I know what you mean, of course! But it is a man’s privilege to entertain himself in his own fashion, even with “odd” people if he likes. “Odd” people are always infinitely diverting, owing to their never being able to recognise their own abnormal absurdity. And I never play spy on my husband. I consider a wife who condescends to become a detective as the most contemptible of creatures living.’ Whereupon the ‘candid friend,’ vexed and baffled, would retire behind an entrenchment of generalities, and afterwards, at ‘afternoons’ and social gatherings, would publicly opine that, ‘It was most probable Mrs Carlyon was carrying on a little game of her own, as she seemed so indifferent to her husband’s goings-on. She was a deep one, oh, yes! very deep! She knew a thing or two!—and perhaps, who could tell?—Paul Valdis had his own reasons for specially “fixing” her with his dark, passionate eyes whenever she appeared in her box at the theatre where he was playing the chief character in an English version of “Ernani.”’ It was true enough that Delicia was hardly ever seen at the places her husband most frequented, but this happened because he was fond of racing and she was not. She disliked the senseless, selfish and avaricious side of life so glaringly presented at the favourite ‘turf’ resorts of the ‘swagger’ set, and said so openly.