“But there is a time for war and a time for peace,” tartly quoted Mrs. Charteris, “as you said in your sermon just now. Oh, no, Mr. Brand, we know what a sacrifice it would be to your martial spirit to remain here, and we can’t ask it of you! The youngsters, you know, now call you the Fire Brand, and as for the statement Mr. Wynne makes, who knows when everybody was born and married, that you are over forty-five years of age--why, dozens of the ladies of the congregation can prove that you have told us you were not a day over forty.” Mr. Brand sighed helplessly. The pursuit of ladies of spirit with sharp tongues and considerable estates in their own right was not always a bed of roses. Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine both went out of their pew and mingled with the congregation, talking freely of the epoch-making events of last week. Angela, however, silent and disdainful, remained in the pew, and Isabey feeling sorry for her also remained, and began to talk with her in a subdued tone. “You have a very pretty voice,” he said. “Why didn’t you keep on singing?” “Because,” answered Angela in the same half-whisper, “I could do nothing but listen to your singing. I never heard anyone in my life sing so beautifully.” Isabey smiled a little. “I am not particularly proud of the accomplishment,” he said. “I don’t care very much for singing men myself, and I have never taken singing very seriously since I was a youngster in Paris. Some day I will tell you how I was taught to sing.” Then after a pause he continued: “It is such a pleasure to me to see Tremaine again. We were chums, as you know, and lived together in Paris, and wore each other’s clothes and borrowed each other’s money for two years.” “I know all about it,” she answered. “And I should like to have seen Neville Tremaine, your husband. We were friends, too, although I never, of course, saw so much of him as of his brother.” As Isabey said “your husband,” Angela shivered a little, and her color, which had returned again, went and left her pale. It suddenly occurred to her with the inexperience and radicalism of youth that it was wicked for her to take an interest in any man whatever other than Neville, and at the same moment it flashed upon her that nothing which Neville could say or do, that neither his coming nor going could affect her so powerfully as the coming of this stranger. Her marriage remained to her an astounding and disorganizing fact which she could not wholly realize, but which made itself felt at every turn. It made it wrong for her, so she thought, to listen so eagerly and even breathlessly to Isabey, and yet she could not put from her his magnetic charm.