“I know you are displeased because it is not good enough for me; but how can I help myself?  Poor Marian——­”

“Do hush!” said Elinor.  “Here she is.”

“You need not be in such a hurry, Duke,” said Marian.  “What can it matter to you how late you get back?”

“No,” said Marmaduke.  “I’ve got to write home.  The governor is ill; and my mammy will send me a five-sheet sermon if I neglect writing to-night.  You will keep Lucy for another week, wont you?  Box her ears if she gives you any cheek.  She wants it:  she’s been spoiled.”

“If we find we can do no better than that with her, we shall hand her back to you,” said Conolly.  Then the visitors took their leave.  Marian gently pressed Douglas’s hand and looked into his eyes as he bade her farewell.  Elinor, seeing this, glanced uneasily at Conolly, and unexpectedly met his eye.  There was a gleam of cynical intelligence in it that did not reassure her.  A few minutes later she went to bed, leaving the couple alone together.  Conolly looked at his wife for a moment with an amused expression; but she closed her lips irresponsively, and went to the table for a book which she wanted to bring upstairs.  She would have gone without a word had he not spoken to her.

“Marian:  Douglas is in love with you.”

She blushed; thought a moment; and said quietly, “Very well.  I shall not ask him to come again.”

“Why?”

She colored more vividly and suddenly, and said, “I thought you cared.  I beg your pardon.”

“My dear,” he replied, amiably:  “if you exclude everybody who falls in love with you, we shall have no one in the house but blind men.”

“And do you like men to be in love with me?”

“Yes.  It makes the house pleasant for them; it makes them attentive to you; and it gives you great power for good.  When I was a romantic boy, any good woman could have made a saint of me.  Let them fall in love with you as much as they please.  Afterwards they will seek wives according to a higher standard than if they had never known you.  But do not return the compliment, or your influence will become an evil one.”

“Ned:  I had not intended to tell you this; but now I will.  Sholto Douglas not only loves me, but he told me so to-day.”

“Of course.  A man always does tell it, sooner or later.”

Marian sat down on the sofa and looked at him for some time gravely and a little wistfully.  “I think,” she said, “I should feel very angry if any woman made such a confession to you.”

“A Christian British lady does not readily forgive a breach of convention; nor a woman an invasion of her privileges, even when they have become a burden to her.”

“What do you mean by that?” she said, rising.

“Marian,” he said, looking straight at her:  “are you dissatisfied?”

“What reason have I to—­”

“Never mind the reasons.  Are you?”