like all the other men? Would he cease to care?"

For the first time Lady Holme looked really thoughtful--almost painfully
thoughtful.

"One's husband," she said slowly. "Perhaps he's different. He--he ought
to be different."

A faint suggestion of terror came into her large brown eyes.

"There's a strong tie, you know, whatever people may say, a very strong
tie in marriage," she murmured, as if she were thinking out something for
herself. "Fritz ought to love me, even if--if--"

She broke off and looked about the room. Robin Pierce glanced round too
over the chattering guests sitting or standing in easy or lazy postures,
smiling vaguely, or looking grave and indifferent. Mrs. Wolfstein was
laughing, and yawned suddenly in the midst of her mirth. Lady Cardington
said something apparently tragic, to Mr. Bry, who was polishing his
eyeglass and pouting out his dewy lips. Sir Donald Ulford, wandering
round the walls, was examining the pictures upon them. Lady Manby, a
woman with a pyramid of brown hair and an aggressively flat back, was
telling a story. Evidently it was a comic history of disaster. Her
gestures were full of deliberate exaggeration, and she appeared to be
impersonating by turns two or three different people, each of whom had a
perfectly ridiculous personality. Lord Holme burst into a roar of
laughter. His big bass voice vibrated through the room. Suddenly Lady
Holme laughed too.

"Why are you laughing?" Robin Pierce asked rather harshly. "You didn't