Palgrave was triumphantly one-eyed and selfish; but he waited, with a sort of satirical wistfulness, for the time when some one person should cause him to stand eager and startled in a chaos of individualism and indolence and shake him into a Great Emotion. He had looked for her at all times and places, though without any troublesome optimism or personal energy, and had almost come to believe that she was to him what the end of the rainbow is to the idealist. In marrying Alice he had followed the path of least resistance. She was young, pretty and charming, and had been very much in love with him. Also it pleased his mother, and she had been worth pleasing. He gave his wife all that she could possibly need, except very much of himself. She was a perfectly dear little soul. Joan only kept him waiting about fifteen minutes. With perfect patience he stood in front of an Italian mirror in the drawing-room, smoking a cigarette through a long tortoise-shell holder. He regarded himself with keen and friendly interest, not in the least surprised that his wife's little friend from the country so evidently liked him. He found that he looked up to his best form, murmured a word of praise for the manner in which his evening coat was cut and smiled once or twice in order to have the satisfaction of getting a glimpse of his peculiarly good teeth. Then he laughed, called himself a conceited ass and went over to examine a rather virile sketch of a muscular, deep-chested young man in rowing costume which occupied an inconspicuous place among many well-chosen pictures. He recognized Martin, whom he had seen several times following the hounds, and tried to remember if Alice had told him whether Joan had run away with this strenuous young fellow or been run away with by him. There was much difference between the two methods. He heard nothing, but caught the scent of Peau d'Espagne. It carried his mind back to a charming little suite in the Hotel de Crillon in Paris. He turned and found Joan standing in the doorway, watching him. "Did you ever row?" she asked. "No," he said, "never. Too much fag. I played squash and roulette. You look like a newly risen moon in her first quarter. Where would you like to go?" "I don't know," said Joan. "Let's break away from the conventional places. I rather want to see queer people and taste different food. But don't let's discuss it. I leave it to you." She went downstairs. She might have been living in that house for years. He followed, admiring the way her small, patrician head was set on her shoulders, and the rich brown note of her hair. Extraordinary little person, this! He told his chauffeur to drive to the Brevoort, and got into the car. It was possible at that hour to deal with the Avenue as a street and not as a rest-cure interrupted by short spurts. "Would you rather the windows were up, Gehane?" he asked, looking at her through his long lashes. "No. The air's full of new ferns. But why Gehane?"