would own nothing but the barest necessities--neither pictures, nor
furniture, neither clothes nor books. Pictures, furniture? Why, he had no
roof to shelter them! Clothes? Where was he to carry them, if not on his
back? Books? He had half-dozen, which contained all the wisdom of the
world. So he used to cry. Now, this might be as it was; but when he seemed
to expect her to be of the same mind and behaviour, you will see that he
must needs be mad.

Yet so it was. He had lived in a tent for twenty years, so took his tent
to Germany, and went on living in it. In that, with complete gravity, he
received the Grand Duke of Baden, and several uniformed high officials,
who wore plumed headgear and incredibly high collars, and glittering boots
of patent leather. Folded superbly in cloaks of milky blue, they looked to
Mary like gods; to Senhouse they were amusing fellow-creatures, interested
in his plants and plans. He spread maps on the ground and followed his
racing finger with racing speech. His German was faulty, but exceedingly
graphic. His words shook the tent curtains. Within half-an-hour, such was
the infection of his eloquence, he had most of his company on their knees
beside him, and the Grand Duke, accommodated with a camp-stool, buried his
hand in his beard and followed every line without a breath. Of all in that
tent, she, Mary Germain, had been the only person to feel the
indescribable squalor in the situation--and she the only one who might
have been born to it; for her upbringing had been humble, and her rise in
the world sudden and short of durance. But she knew now that she had
hardly been able to live it out for very shame.

Directly the visitors had departed there had been a scene--she in tears of
vexation which scalded, and he concerned at her trouble, but unable for
the life of him to see what it was all about. He had been kindness itself.
He always was the kindest and gentlest creature. If she wanted a house,