“Quite so,” replied the husband.  “But, you see, I had some little hesitation in coming here at half-past ten o’clock to make inquiries about my wife—­you might have gone to some place else, you know, in which case I should have looked a trifle foolish; so I though that, on the whole, my best plan would be to drop in upon Mr. Ayrton at the House of Commons and drive here with him when he was coming home for the night.  I took it for granted that even so earnest a legislator as Mr. Ayrton allows himself his nights—­after twelve, of course—­at home.  I’m very sorry I startled you, Ella.  It shall not occur again.”

“What time did you reach home?” inquired Ella casually—­so casually that her husband, who had a very discriminating ear, gave a little glance in her direction.  She was disengaging a corner of her lace trimming that had become entangled with a large sapphire in a pendant.

“I reached home at nine,” he replied.

“At nine?” She spoke the words after him in a little gasp.  Then she said, walking across the room to a sofa, “I could not have left many minutes before you arrived.  I intended going to the opera.”

“That toilet should not have been wasted,” said he.  “It is exquisite—­ravissante!”

“It was an inspiration, your putting it on,” said Phyllis.  “I wonder if she really had no subtle suggestion from her own heart that you were on your way to her, Mr. Linton,” she added, turning to the husband.

“I dare say it was some inward prompting of that mysterious nature, Miss Ayrton,” he replied.  “A woman’s heart is barometric in its nature, it is not?  Its sensitiveness is so great that it moves responsive to a suggestion of what is to come.  Is a woman’s heart prophetic, I wonder?”

“It would be a rank heresy to doubt it, after the example we have had to-night,” said Mr. Ayrton.  “Yes, a woman’s heart is a barometer suggesting what is coming to her, and her toilet is a thermometer indicating the degree of expectancy.”

“A charming phrase,” said Mr. Linton; “a charming principle, only one that demands some years of close study to be rendered practical.  For instance, look at my wife’s toilet:  it is bridal, and yet we have been married three years.”

“Quite so; and that toilet means that you are the luckiest fellow in the world,” said Mr. Ayrton.

“I admit the interpretation,” said her husband.  “I told the hansom to wait for me.  He is at the door now.  You have had no opera to-night, my dear?”

“You would not expect me to go alone?  Phyllis was dining at the Earlscourts’,” said the wife.

“You are the soul of discretion, my beloved,” said the husband.  “Is your stock of phrases equal to a suggestion as to what instrument is the soul of a woman, Ayrton?” he added.  “Her heart is a barometer, her toilet a thermometer, and her soul——­”

“The soul of a woman is not an instrument, but a flower—­a lily,” said Mr. Ayrton.