"Well," said Hetty reflectively, "if I had been rich I think I should like the man I married to do everything—even play cards and billiards and shoot pheasants—as well as my friends did. It wouldn't be nice to feel that I had to make excuses for him, and I'm not sure I wouldn't be vexed if he didn't seem to know all about the things folks of that kind get for dinner."
Ingleby's laugh was a protest, but it was only half-incredulous, for he had now and then realized with bitterness the deference paid to conventional niceties in England.
"You can't believe that would trouble any sensible woman?" he said.
"Well," answered Hetty, "perhaps it mightn't, for a little while, or if there was only one thing, you see—but if you put everything together and kept on doing what jarred on her?"
"One could get somebody to teach him."
Hetty laughed. "To be like the officer man, or Mr. Esmond of Holtcar?"
Ingleby understood the significance of the question. The little conventional customs might be acquired, but the constant jarring of opinion, and absence of comprehending sympathy or a common point of view was, he realized, quite a different thing. Still, though there was concern in his face, he had the hope of youth in him. There was silence for a moment or two, and then Hetty spoke again.
"Besides," she said, "after all, aren't gold mines a little hard to find?"
Just then Leger made his appearance, somewhat to Ingleby's relief, and ten minutes later Hetty retired to the tent while the men, rolling themselves in their blankets, lay down upon the cedar twigs beside the fire. One of them, however, did not sleep as well as usual, and Leger noticed that his sister appeared a little languid when she rose in the morning. They were weary still, and it was afternoon when they once more pushed on into the wilderness along the climbing trail that had for guide-posts empty provision cans.