"Invitations! Before people have called upon you?" "They can call all the same. I have been asking Mary Tynn how many beds she can, by dint of screwing, afford. I am going to fill them all. I shall ask them for a month. How grave you look, Lionel!" "In this first early sojourn together in our own house, Sibylla, I think we shall be happier alone." "Oh, no, we should not. I love visitors. We shall be together all the same, Lionel." "My little wife," he said, "if you cared for me as I care for you, you would not feel the want of visitors just now." And there was no sophistry in this speech. He had come to the conviction that Lucy ought to have been his wife, but he did care for Sibylla very much. The prospect of a house full of guests at the present moment, appeared most displeasing to him, if only as a matter of taste. "Put it off for a few weeks, Sibylla." Sibylla pouted. "It is of no use preaching, Lionel. If you are to be a preaching husband, I shall be sorry I married you. Fred was never that." Lionel's face turned blood-red. Sibylla put up her hand, and drew it carelessly down. "You must let me have my own way for this once," she coaxingly said. "What's the use of my bringing all those loves of things from Paris, if we are to live in a dungeon, and nobody's to see them? I must invite them, Lionel." "Very well," he answered, yielding the point. Yielding it the more readily from the consciousness above spoken of. "There's my dear Lionel! I knew you would never turn tyrant. And now I want something else." "What's that?" asked Lionel. "A cheque." "A cheque? I gave you one this morning, Sibylla." "Oh! but the one you gave me is for housekeeping--for Mary Tynn, and all that. I want one for myself. I am not going to have my expenses come out of the housekeeping." Lionel sat down to write one, a good-natured smile on his face. "I'm sure I don't know what you will find to spend it in, after all the finery you bought in Paris," he said, in a joking tone. "How much shall I fill it in for?" "As much as you will," replied Sibylla, too eagerly. "Couldn't you give it me in blank, and let me fill it in?" He made no answer. He drew it for L100, and gave it her. "Will that do, my dear?" She drew his face down again caressingly. But, in spite of the kisses left upon his lips, Lionel had awoke to the conviction, firm and undoubted, that his wife did not love him. CHAPTER XLVI. SHADOWED-FORTH EMBARRASSMENT.