which supposedly had been renounced--virtue, sobriety, security, respect
--would this be endured? She went about it breathlessly, like a thief.

Never was there a more exemplary household. They rose at half-past seven,
they breakfasted at a quarter after eight; at nine, young Mr. Manning,
the farm superintendent, was in waiting, and Hugh spent two or more hours
in his company, inspecting, correcting, planning; for two thousand acres
of the original Chiltern estate still remained. Two thousand acres which,
since the General's death, had been at sixes and sevens. The General's
study, which was Hugh's now, was piled high with new and bulky books on
cattle and cultivation of the soil. Government and state and private
experts came and made tests and went away again; new machinery arrived,
and Hugh passed hours in the sun, often with Honora by his side,
installing it. General Chiltern had been president and founder of the
Grenoble National Bank, and Hugh took up his duties as a director.

Honora sought, with an energy that had in it an element of desperation,
to keep pace with her husband. For she was determined that he should have
no interests in which she did not share. In those first days it was her
dread that he might grow away from her, and instinct told her that now or
never must the effort be made. She, too, studied farming; not from books,
but from him. In their afternoon ride along the shady river road, which
was the event of her day, she encouraged him to talk of his plans and
problems, that he might thus early form the habit of bringing them to
her. And the unsuspecting male in him responded, innocent of the simple
subterfuge. After an exhaustive discourse on the elements lacking in the
valley soil, to which she had listened in silent intensity, he would
exclaim:

"By George, Honora, you're a continual surprise to me. I had no idea a