“Oh, yes--at the proper time, when I was a girl. I was only at one drawing-room after that. We were too poor to afford the dress.” “You are not too poor now to afford--whatever you please in that way--Evelyn:” he laughed, abashed and shy, but eager, “should you think it right to--go again.” “Oh, yes,” she said by no means so earnestly. “I hope you would not dislike it, James.” “Dislike it!--to show one’s reverence and homage to the Queen? Good heavens, no! if a man felt good enough--It seems as if it should be a kind of duty, Evelyn.” “Yes,” she said, not so fervent even now; “but not this year. I can take Marion next spring.” He laughed so that he almost cried. “And I suppose I shall have to get myself up in some ridiculous costume or other to go with you--me and little Mey--a pair of guys--before the Queen!” CHAPTER XIX. This sudden glimpse into her husband’s deeper nature which it was so easy to lose sight of in his genial and easy exterior, touched Evelyn more than words could say. She entered into his profound discontent with the tenderest sympathy, a little appalled by it indeed, and by the prospect of struggling in her own person with the two grown-up children, who were so much more difficult a problem at the age they had now reached than had they been younger. She contemplated the prospect with no little dismay. The words of his faltering disclosure, “little, common, foolish,” were of all others the words most difficult to reconcile with any higher or generous quality. The only thing that seemed to have broken the shock to James was that the boy had his mother’s eyes. But what, Evelyn said to herself with a little shudder, would the mother herself have appeared to Rowland now, if she had been living all these years stagnant in their old world, growing fat and prosaic, while he had gained so many new experiences? And how much might his disappointment have to do with herself, and that faculty of seeing things through other eyes which comes with sympathy and close intercourse. He might not have required so much from his little Marion, poor child, if it had not been for Evelyn. So much the greater, then, was her responsibility who had accustomed him to a different standard, and so unintentionally brought to him an acute pang. Evelyn said to herself that, however _desillusioné_ her husband might be, she must try to keep a motherly glamour in her own eyes. She must endeavour to suffer long and be kind, to think no evil--neither to be disgusted nor discouraged. It was perhaps partly her fault. She must take it upon her own shoulders and refuse to see anything that was undesirable to be seen. But it was very difficult for her to form any just idea of what was the special trouble which she had to expect--even of how the littleness and commonness would show themselves. She thought of a wild girl speaking broad Scotch, a young man with sinewy limbs, and perhaps (forgive her ignorance) a kilt, speaking the language which in books is