Slaney had scarcely settled herself by the fire, when she heard Lady Susan’s voice in the hall, and following on it the voices of Hugh and Mr. Glasgow. The afternoon leaped again into life and meaning. As she came into the lamp-lit hall to meet her visitors, Lady Susan and Major Bunbury realized in their different ways that she was better-looking than they had believed. Her dark hair rose full and soft from her white forehead, in the simplicity that is often extolled, but is seldom becoming; her complexion was pale and tender with western air and country living, the refinement that was so ineffective at Hurlingham was here pervading and subtle. Lady Susan looked hard at her, and promoted her at once and ungrudgingly from the ranks of non-combatants. Major Bunbury felt that his special sister (who read Carlyle and played Scarlatti) would like to meet her. Although he hunted six days a week, he kept a soul somewhere, and his sister knew where it was. They all sat down in the firelight of the drawing-room, where the tall west window showed a clear twilight sky, tinged with pink, and barbed with a moon as hard and keen as a scimitar. There was a quaint and sprawling paper on the walls, a band of brass gleamed round the wide opening of the fire-place, a slight smell of turf and wood smoke added its sentiment of country quietness to the air. “It was jolly coming over,” said Lady Susan, displaying a good deal of drab gaiter as she leaned back and sipped her tea, “but we’re not going to have any hunting to-morrow. My bike was breaking ice on all the puddles.” “I thought it was going to break _me_ when you overtook me in the avenue just now,” said Mr. Glasgow, in a tone that masked surprisingly well the sentiments he had expressed to Slaney about the modern young woman and her bicycle. He had not thought of mentioning that when the modern young woman possessed a figure that did not admit of a second opinion, and a title, his views might be subject to modification. “I shan’t think of taking the hounds out to-morrow,” said Hugh; “Dan knows the country, and he says it would not be the least use.” Inwardly he was telling himself that he was a coward and a cur, because he felt such entire thankfulness for the frost. He had told them all how the leg that he had broken at polo had stopped him last Friday, when the fox had been run to ground on Fornagh Hill, and he hated himself for his own fluency in lying. His horror and despair were out of all proportion to the fact of a broken nerve. He could do but one thing well, and that one thing was taken from him. He loved his wife with all the strength of a very simple and kindly nature, but some new, chill instinct told him that this was a disaster that it would be wise to hide from her. So far, at all events, his secret was in his own keeping.