seldom that Mrs. Talboys remained long in conversation with any
lady.

Mackinnon, I believe, soon became tired of her. He liked her
flattery, and at first declared that she was clever and nice; but
her niceness was too purely celestial to satisfy his mundane tastes.
Mackinnon himself can revel among the clouds in his own writings,
and can leave us sometimes in doubt whether he ever means to come
back to earth; but when his foot is on terra firma, he loves to feel
the earthly substratum which supports his weight. With women he
likes a hand that can remain an unnecessary moment within his own,
an eye that can glisten with the sparkle of champagne, a heart weak
enough to make its owner's arm tremble within his own beneath the
moonlight gloom of the Coliseum arches. A dash of sentiment the
while makes all these things the sweeter; but the sentiment alone
will not suffice for him. Mrs. Talboys did, I believe, drink her
glass of champagne, as do other ladies; but with her it had no such
pleasing effect. It loosened only her tongue, but never her eye.
Her arm, I think, never trembled, and her hand never lingered. The
General was always safe, and happy, perhaps, in his solitary safety.

It so happened that we had unfortunately among us two artists who
had quarrelled with their wives. O'Brien, whom I have before
mentioned, was one of them. In his case, I believe him to have been
almost as free from blame as a man can be whose marriage was in
itself a fault. However, he had a wife in Ireland some ten years
older than himself; and though he might sometimes almost forget the
fact, his friends and neighbours were well aware of it. In the
other case the whole fault probably was with the husband. He was an
ill-tempered, bad-hearted man, clever enough, but without principle;