Kingston by degrees began to notice the disappearance of his wife and the supremacy of her cousin in his mind. Occasionally he showed a dim foreknowledge of the inevitable by brief spasms of anger against Isabel, by fruitless attempts to carry Gundred with them in their flights. But by now Gundred’s mental immobility had begun to be an annoyance to him, and he was always glad to relinquish his efforts and fall back into the familiar swing of dialogue with Isabel. The faint air of greatness which for a time had been reflected on Gundred from the walls of Brakelond had now faded utterly. She was swallowed up in household details, could be seen meditating on ‘menus’ while the most fantastic notions were flying swiftly between her husband and her cousin. Her life was now consumed in coping with the cook; she was completely happy in her task, and it was with growing readiness and growing wrath that Kingston let her drop from his mental intimacy. She filled up time by talks with her mother-in-law, who had a dower house down the valley. The somewhat woolly mind of Lady Adela was very congenial to Gundred, and her small, clear-cut nature found it both harmonious and restful--like her own, though so utterly unlike. The two women took refuge in each other; and Gundred, taken up by the house and Lady Adela, would not have had the leisure, even had she had the acumen, to remark how completely she was passing out of her husband’s life. ‘Is the house insured?’ asked Isabel one morning. Kingston and she were sitting together under the long wall of the picture-gallery. ‘I don’t know,’ he answered; ‘I always forget things like that. My dear,’ he cried, calling to his mother, who had walked up across the fields with her knitting, and now had established herself in one of the cushioned window-seats close to Gundred, who was methodically checking a Stores List--‘my dear, is the house insured?’ Lady Adela answered in the affirmative, and Gundred made haste to clutch her share in a conversation that she could understand, by swiftly affirming that, if not, it ought to be at once. ‘Otherwise one feels it such a responsibility to live in a house--yes?’ she added. ‘I don’t like betting and gambling,’ replied Isabel, assuming a manner of exaggerated rectitude. ‘My dear!’ protested Lady Adela, looking mildly up at her over her spectacles. If Lady Adela could dislike anyone, she disliked her daughter-in-law’s new cousin. Deep in her heart she condemned Isabel as strong-minded. Tiresome and strong-minded. ‘It’s a gamble with Fate, you know,’ explained Isabel; ‘all insurance is, of course--having a bet on with the Almighty that He won’t burn down your house or throw your train off the rails.’ ‘My dear!’ protested Lady Adela again. ‘You have such strange fancies, Isabel,’ said Gundred coldly. ‘You always think of things that no one else would think of.’ Clearly, as delivered in Gundred’s neat, precise tones, this was the final expression of righteous disapproval.