“There. Don’t be hurt. Everything’s going on swimmingly, I assure you. The world at my feet, and heaven at my finger tips. Let us go to Gerard.” The smoking-room was a nondescript apartment, half library, half gun-room, suggestive more of the country squire than the London barrister. Gerard, with a glass of water on a little table by his side, was engaged upon his casts, screwing up his eyes, so as both to avoid the smoke of his pipe and to see the delicate involutions of his knots. He looked up, with a nod, when his wife and friend entered. Irene turned to a desk to scribble a note. The men’s talk turned upon fishing. Weston had killed a two-pound trout the day before. They discussed the chances of a similar prize for Gerard. Then came the question of flies. Gerard waxed learned. Irene, having written her note and finding herself out of the conversation, took up a book. Gerard’s love of sport she indulgently allowed, but in her heart she could not sympathise with it. The wilful infliction of pain passed her comprehension. There was so much of it in the world already. She was glad when she became aware of a change of topic, and drew her chair nearer the fire. But Hugh, looking at his watch, rose to depart. Irene protested. “So early? It is not ten o’clock yet.” There was a touch of dismay in her tone. Gerard, too, bade him sit down again. But he pleaded work. He had been briefed in a hurry, had not a notion yet of the case which was coming on immediately. They had to let him go, and when he had gone, fell to discussing him as they had done a thousand times before. Irene idealised and worshipped her husband, but her feelings towards Hugh were composed of conflicting and of somewhat delicate elements. The man’s history, mode of life and diversity of character, appealed by turns to her sense of romance, of trust, of protection. He had squandered a pretty patrimony in his early days. A diamond brooch still glittered before the footlights on an oblivious bosom. He had lived open-handedly, benefiting more by his vices than many of the austere do by their virtues. Even now, with modest income at the criminal bar, small thrift was incomprehensible to him, in spite of Irene’s periodical expositions. On such occasions she looked serenely down upon him from immeasurable heights. But in this man of so many simplicities, seemed to lie a baffling fund of reserve, which both compelled her respect and kept her intellectual interest in him upon the alert. The paradox fascinated her especially in its extension to achievement. For with a habit of glowing speech he combined a severe literary taste. A reputation of some standing had been made and was upheld by poems wrought with crystalline coldness. On the other hand, a recent and sudden opening at the bar was chiefly due to tempestuous advocacy.