'I'm sorry. They're both of them too good for ordinary society. I wish to God we could all four of us go out to a place I know in Tasmania, and live honest, clean, rational lives! Can't be managed. Your wife has her music; Sibyl has her books and so on----' 'By-the-bye, you know Mrs. Strangeways?' 'I know _of_ her.' 'And not much good?' 'No particular harm. Sibyl saw a little of her, but I don't think they meet now. Your wife know her?' 'She has met her here and there: you and I are alike in that. We can't stand the drawing-room, so our wives have to go about by themselves. The days are past when a man watched over his wife's coming and going as a matter of course. We should only make fools of ourselves if we tried it on. It's the new world, my boy; we live in it, and must make the best of it.' Hugh Carnaby drank more wine than is usually taken at luncheon. It excited him to boisterous condemnation of things in general. He complained of the idleness that was forced upon him, except when he could get down to Coventry. 'I hang about for whole days doing literally nothing. What _should_ I do? I'm not the man for books; I can't get much sport nowadays; I don't care for billiards. I want to have an axe in my hand!' Gesticulating carelessly, he swept a wine-glass off the table. 'There--damn it! shows we've sat long enough. Come and talk to Sibyl, and let her give you a cup of tea. You never see her--never; yet she thinks better of you than of any other man we know. Come, let's get out of this beastly air. The place reeks of onions.' They went to Oxford and Cambridge Mansions, where Rolfe spent the time until he had to leave for his appointment with Cecil Morphew. Sibyl was very kind, but gently reproachful. Why had Alma forsaken her? Why did Harvey himself never drop in? 'I'm often quite lonely, Mr. Rolfe, and as one result of it I'm getting learned. Look at these books. Won't you give me a word of admiration?' There was a volume of Crowe and Cavalcaselle, one of Symonds's 'Renaissance', Benvenuto's 'Memoirs' in the original. 'I can't help clinging to the old world,' she said sweetly. 'Hugh forgives me, like a good boy; and you, I know, not only forgive, but sympathise.' Of course, not a word passed with reference to Hugh Carnaby's business; Redgrave's name was not mentioned. Sibyl, one felt, would decline to recognise, in her own drawing-room, the gross necessities of life. Had bankruptcy been impending, she would have ignored it with the same perfection of repose. An inscrutable woman, who could look and smile at one without conveying the faintest suggestion of her actual thoughts.