The thought of Lady Maxwell brought a laugh to her lips.

"Oh! do you know, Harding was so amusing about the Maxwells to-day!" she
said, turning to Tressady in her most good-humoured and confiding mood.
"He says people are getting so tired of her,--of her meddling, and her
preaching, and all the rest of it,--and that everybody thinks him so
absurd not to put a stop to it. And Harding says that it doesn't succeed
even--that Englishmen will never stand petticoat government. It's all
very well--they have to stand it in some forms!"

And, stretching her slim neck, she turned and gave her husband a tiny
flying kiss on the cheek. Mechanically grateful, George took her hand in
his, but he did not make her the pretty speech she expected. Just before
she spoke he was about to tell her of his evening--of the meeting, and of
his drive home with Lady Maxwell. He had been far too proud hitherto, and
far too confident in himself, to make any secret to Letty of what he did.
And, luckily, she had raised no difficulties. In truth, she had been too
well provided with amusements and flatteries of her own since their
return from the country to leave her time or opportunities for jealousy.
Perhaps, secretly, the young husband would have been more flattered if
she had been more exacting.

But as she quoted Harding something stiffened in him. Later, after the
ball, when they were alone, he would tell her--he would try and make her
understand what sort of a woman Marcella Maxwell was. In his trouble of
mind a confused plan crossed his thoughts of trying to induce Lady
Maxwell to make friends with Letty. But a touch of that charm, that
poetry!--he asked no more.

He glanced at his wife. She looked pretty and young as she sat beside