She experienced no difficulty in the execution of this project. Every one seemed anxious to assist her. Despite precautions, the fact that all was not well in the house of Juggernaut was public property; and the usual distorted rumours on the subject had set out upon their rounds, going from strength to strength in the process. Daphne was soon made conscious that people were sorry for her. Frivolous but warm-hearted women were openly sympathetic. Large, clumsy men indicated by various awkward and furtive acts of kindness that they too understood the situation, but were too tactful to betray the fact. Altogether Daphne was in a fair way to becoming spoiled. With all her faults no one had ever yet been able or inclined to call her anything but unaffected and natural; but about this time she began to assume the virtuous and long-suffering demeanour of a femme incomprise. She was only twenty-four, and few of us are able to refuse a martyr's crown when it is pressed upon us.
Only her monosyllabic host—"The Silent Knight," his friends called him, denying him his baronetcy in their zest for the nickname—was unable to appreciate the extreme delicacy of the situation. He was a plain man, Arthur Hilton, and hated mysteries.
"Why isn't that girl at home, lookin' after her husband, Ethel?" he inquired of his wife one morning.
"I think she is happier with us, dear," replied Lady Hilton with immense solemnity.
The Silent Knight emitted a subdued rumble, indicative of a desire to argue the point, and continued—
"Happier—eh? Hasn't she got a baby, or somethin', somewhere? What the dev——"
"Yes, dear, she has a baby," replied his wife, rolling up her fine eyes to the ceiling; "but I fear she has not been very fortunate in her marriage. She was the daughter of a country clergyman—dreadfully poor, I understand—and wanted to improve the family fortunes. There were eight or nine of them, so she took this old man."
The Silent Knight's engine fairly raced.
"Old man be damned!" he observed with sudden heat. "Sorry, my dear! But Jack Carr can't be more than forty-six. I'm forty-eight. I'm an old man, too, I suppose! Back number—eh? One foot in the grave! You lookin' about for my successor, Ethel—what?"
It was useless to explain to this obtuse and uxorious critic that a young and sensitive girl cannot be expected to dwell continuously beneath the roof of a husband whose tastes are not her tastes, who has merely married her to keep house for him, and who neglects her into the bargain. Not that this prevented Lady Hilton from endeavouring to do so. When she had finished, her husband knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and remarked—