“Why not?” he demanded.

“In the first place, because I don’t want to; and in the second, because I’m expecting Lily Dallam.”

“Lily never keeps an engagement,” he said.

“That’s no reason why I shouldn’t,” Honora answered.

“I’m beginning to think you’re deuced clever,” said he.

“How unfortunate for me!” she exclaimed.

He laughed, although it was plain that he was obviously put out.  Honora was still smiling.

“Deuced clever,” he repeated.

“An experienced moth,” suggested Honora; “perhaps one that has been singed a little, once or twice.  Good-by—­I’ve enjoyed myself immensely.”

She glanced back at him as she walked down the path to the roadway.  He was still standing where she had left him, his feet slightly apart, his hands in the pockets of his riding breeches, looking after her.

Her announcement of an engagement with Mrs. Dallam had been, to put it politely, fiction.  She spent the rest of the afternoon writing letters home, pausing at periods to look out of the window.  Occasionally it appeared that her reflections were amusing.  At seven o’clock Howard arrived, flushed and tired after his day of rest.

“By the way, Honora, I saw Trixy Brent at the Club, and he said you wouldn’t go riding with him.”

“Do you call him Trixy to his face?” she asked.

“What?  No—­but everyone calls him Trixy.  What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing,” she replied.  “Only—­the habit every one has in Quicksands of speaking of people they don’t know well by their nicknames seems rather bad taste.”

“I thought you liked Quicksands,” he retorted.  “You weren’t happy until you got down here.”

“It’s infinitely better than Rivington,” she said.

“I suppose,” he remarked, with a little irritation unusual in him, “that you’ll be wanting to go to Newport next.”

“Perhaps,” said Honora, and resumed her letter.  He fidgeted about the room for a while, ordered a cocktail, and lighted a cigarette.

“Look here,” he began presently, “I wish you’d be decent to Brent.  He’s a pretty good fellow, and he’s in with James Wing and that crowd of big financiers, and he seems to have taken a shine to me probably because he’s heard of that copper deal I put through this spring.”

Honora thrust back her writing pad, turned in her chair, and faced him.

“How ‘decent’ do you wish me to be?” she inquired.

“How decent?” he repeated.

“Yes.”

He regarded her uneasily, took the cocktail which the maid offered him, drank it, and laid down the glass.

He had had before, in the presence of his wife, this vague feeling of having passed boundaries invisible to him.  In her eyes was a curious smile that lacked mirth, in her voice a dispassionate note that added to his bewilderment.

“What do you mean, Honora?”