‘Do you go out this evening?’ he asked, after a pause.

’No; I’m rather tired and out of sorts.  Dinner is at seven.  I shall go to bed early.’

The police had as yet failed to get upon the track of the felonious housekeeper, known as Mrs. Maskell.  Mrs. Carnaby’s other servants still kept their places, protesting innocence, and doubtless afraid to leave lest they should incur suspicion.  Domestic management was now In the hands of the cook.  Sibyl always declared that she could not eat a dinner she had had the trouble of ordering, and she seemed unaffectedly to shrink from persons of the menial class, as though with physical repulsion.  Perforce she submitted to having her hair done by her maid, but she found the necessity disagreeable.

The dinner was simple, but well cooked.  Sibyl never ate with hearty appetite, and declined everything not of excellent quality; unlike women in general, she was fastidious about wine, yet took of it sparingly; liqueurs, too, she enjoyed, and very strong coffee.  To a cigarette in the mouth of a woman she utterly objected; it offended her sense of the becoming, her delicate perception of propriety.  When dining alone or with Hugh, she dressed as carefully as for a ceremonious occasion.  Any approach to personal disorder or neglect was inconceivable in Sibyl.  Her husband had, by accident, heard her called ’the best-groomed woman in London’; he thought the praise well merited, and it flattered him.

At table they talked of things as remote as possible from their immediate concerns, and with the usual good humour.  When he rose to open the door, Hugh said ——­

‘Drawing-room or library?’

‘Library.  You would like to smoke.’

For ten minutes he sat with his arms on the table, his great well-shapen hands loosely clenched before him.  He drank nothing.  His gaze was fixed on a dish of fruit, and widened as if in a growing perplexity.  Then he recovered himself, gave a snort, and went to join his wife.

Sibyl was reading a newspaper.  Hugh lit his pipe in silence, and sat down opposite to her.  Presently the newspaper dropped, and Sibyl’s eyes were turned upon her husband with a smile.

‘Well?’

‘Well?’

They smiled at each other amiably.

‘What do you suggest, Birdie?’

The fondling name was not very appropriate, and had not been used of late; Carnaby hit upon it in the honeymoon days, when he said that his wife was like some little lovely bird, which he, great coarse fellow, had captured and almost feared to touch lest he should hurt it.  Hugh had not much originality of thought, and less of expression.

’There are places, you know, where one lives very comfortably on very little,’ said Sibyl.

‘Yes; but it leads to nothing.’

‘What would lead to anything?’

’Well, you see, I have capital, and some use ought to be made of it.  Everybody nowadays goes in for some kind of business.’