She in her turn was acting the hypocrite. In reality her heart had sunk a little as she read the letter. She knew she should miss George very much, that she would feel lonely, dull, and rather helpless without him, and she suddenly recognised that she leaned on him mentally a good deal more than she had been aware of hitherto. Also that his interest in and sympathy with all her little schemes and undertakings had meant much to her. Secretly she had been surprised at her own acceptance of the daily monotony and lack of excitements, and wondered vaguely why she was not bored; and now the knowledge came to her with almost startling effect that it was because of George's constant presence. She looked at him with new attention--he was in uniform, for he had just returned from early parade--and a little glow of pride in his appearance kindled in her heart. Certainly she had a very handsome husband, and, moreover, he was kind and good and faithful, even if his ideas of propriety were somewhat tedious and old-maidish, and he was inclined to be jealous and over-particular. After all, he knew the world; his experience had been long and wide, and he had no great reason to trust either men or women. Trixie seldom thought of the first Mrs. Coventry. The old story had not troubled her; hardly had she regarded it as real. The whole of George's past life was more or less unreal to her, for the reason, perhaps, that he had never spoken of more than casual happenings, or small reminiscences connected with his mother, now dead, and his sister, who had taken up missionary work in the slums of London.
In addition, Trixie was a person who contemplated the present and the immediate future to the exclusion of retrospection, partly because she was so young and had all her life before her, and again because it was her nature. She neither looked back nor far forward. Yet now a glimmering of what her husband might have suffered in the past disturbed her self-engrossment, and caused her to feel inadequate and humble, possessed with a helpless regret that drove her to an unselfish desire to conceal her own feelings over this question of his absence. Her apparent anxiety that he should accept Mr. Markham's invitation was construed by Coventry to mean that she was more or less unaffected by the prospect of his absence, and, half hurt and half resentful, he said a little captiously:
"Well, if you want to get rid of me, of course I'll go."
"You know very well you are dying to go," answered Trixie, with good humour; "and it will do you good. All these years at home you've only been able to shoot pheasants and rabbits and little birds; and what are they compared with tigers?"
"It's much more difficult to shoot a snipe than a tiger," argued Coventry perversely.
"All the better. You'll be able to bring me back several dozen skins, and heaps of claws, and plenty of those funny little bones that make into brooches and are supposed to bring such good luck."
"How did you know about the bones?" he asked, rather to delay the making of a decision at the moment than because he wished to hear.
"Mother has one--not that it ever brought her any luck, poor dear, unless it was getting me married; and I suppose Gommie, at any rate, would call that good luck! Guy Greaves told me about the bones, too, and he's going to give me one when he shoots his first tiger. He was to have come back yesterday, wasn't he? Was he on parade this morning?"
"Yes," said Coventry.
The sudden mention at this juncture of young Greaves made Coventry's heart contract with a spasm of jealous apprehension.