a subaltern when his father died and he came into his kingdom.

Now, Sir Walter Lennox, fifth baronet, had grown old, and his
invincible kindness of heart, his archaic principles, his great
wealth, and the limited experiences of reality, for which such
wealth was responsible, left him a popular and respected man. Yet
he aroused much exasperation in local landowners from his
generosity and scorn of all economic principles; and while his
tenants held him the very exemplar of a landlord, and his servants
worshipped him for the best possible reasons, his friends, weary
of remonstrance, were forced to forgive his bad precedents and a
mistaken liberality quite beyond the power of the average
unfortunate who lives by his land. But he managed his great manor
in his own lavish way, and marvelled that other men declared
difficulties with problems he so readily solved. That night, after
a little music, the Chadlands' house party drifted to
the billiard-room, and while most of the men, after a heavy day
far afield, were content to lounge by a great open hearth where a
wood fire burned, Sir Walter, who had been on a pony most of the
time, declared himself unwearied, and demanded a game.

"No excuses, Henry," he said; and turned to a young man lounging
in an easy-chair outside the fireside circle.

The youth started. His eyes had been fixed on a woman sitting
beside the fire, with her hand in a man's. It was such an attitude
as sophisticated lovers would only assume in private but the pair
were not sophisticated and lovers still, though married. They
lacked self-consciousness, and the husband liked to feel his wife's
hand in his. After all, a thing impossible until you are married