When at length Lady Holme found herself at the other end of the great hall, she turned and saw her husband coming towards her with a look of fury on his face. “I wish to go home,” she said to him in a low voice. She withdrew her hand from Sir Donald’s arm and quietly bade him good-bye. Lord Holme did not say a word. “Where is the Duchess?” Lady Holme added. “Ah, there she is!” She saw the Duchess hurriedly going towards the place where the Duke was sitting, intercepted her swiftly, and bade her good-night. “Now, Fritz!” she said. She was conscious that a number of people were watching her, and her voice and manner were absolutely unembarrassed. A footman took the number of her cloak from Lord Holme and fetched the cloak. A voice cried in the distance, “Lord Holme’s carriage!” Another, and nearer voice, echoed the call. She passed slowly between two lines of men over a broad strip of carpet to the portico, and stepped into the brougham. As it glided away into the night she heard her husband’s loud breathing. He did not speak for two or three minutes, but breathed like a man who had been running, and moved violently in the carriage as if to keep still were intolerable to him. The window next to him was up. He let it down. Then he turned right round to his wife, who was leaning back in her corner wrapped up in her black cloak. “With the Duke sittin’ there!” he said in a loud voice. “With the Duke sittin’ there!” There was a sound of outrage in the voice. “Didn’t I kick that sweep out of the house?” he added. “Didn’t I?” “I believe you asked Mr. Carey not to call anymore.” Lady Holme’s voice had no excitement in it. “Asked him! I--” “Don’t make such a noise, Fritz. The men will hear you.” “I told him if he ever came again I’d have him put out.” “Well, he never has come again.” “What d’you mean by speakin’ to him? What d’you mean by it?” Lady Holme knew that her husband was a thoroughly conventional man, and, like all conventional men, had a horror of a public scene in which any woman belonging to him was mixed up. Such a scene alone was quite enough to rouse his wrath. But there was in his present anger something deeper, more brutal, than any rage caused by a breach of the conventions. His jealousy was stirred. “He didn’t speak to you. You spoke to him.” Lady Holme did not deny it. “I heard every word you said,” continued Lord Holme, beginning to breathe hard again. “I--I--” Lady Holme felt that he was longing to strike her, that if he had been the same man, but a collier or a labourer, born in another class of life, he would not have hesitated to beat her. The tradition in which he had been brought up controlled him. But she knew that if he could have beaten her he would have hated her less, that his sense of bitter wrong would have at once diminished. In self-control it grew. The spark rose to a flame. “You’re a damned shameful woman!” he said.