"Land," screamed Monty. "I wouldn't touch it with a pair of tongs! The workhouses of the next century will be peopled by the offspring of the landed gentry. I shudder when I think of the country squire and his prospects."
"Hard lines," said Jack, who had made that remark two or three times before in the course of the evening.
They were sitting round the fire by this time—smoking and drinking mulled Burgundy, and the conversation had become general.
This night was as many other nights. Sometimes Mr. Tregonell tried to live through the evening in the drawing-room—enduring the society games—the Boulevard music—the recitations and tableaux and general frivolity—but he found these amusements hang upon his spirits like a nightmare. He watched his wife, but could discover nothing actually reprehensible in her conduct—nothing upon which he could take his stand as an outraged husband, and say "This shall not be." If the Baron's devotion to her was marked enough for every one to see, and if her acceptance of his attentions was gracious in the extreme, his devotion and her graciousness were no more than he had seen everywhere accepted as the small change of society, meaning nothing, tending towards nothing but gradual satiety; except in those few exceptional cases which ended in open scandal and took society by surprise. That which impressed Leonard was the utter change in his wife's character. It seemed as if her very nature were altered. Womanly tenderness, a gentle and subdued manner, had given place to a hard brilliancy. It was as if he had lost a pearl, and found a diamond in its place—one all softness and purity, the other all sparkle and light.
He was too proud to sue to her for any renewal of old confidences—to claim from her any of the duties of a wife. If she could live and be happy without him—and he knew but too surely that his presence, his affection, had never contributed to her happiness—he would let her see that he could live without her—that he was content to accept the position she had chosen—union which was no union—marriage that had ceased to be marriage—a chain drawn out to its furthest length, yet held so lightly that neither need feel the bondage.
Everybody at Mount Royal was loud in praise of Christabel. She was so brilliant, so versatile, she made her house so utterly charming. This was the verdict of her new friends—but her old friends were less enthusiastic. Major Bree came to the Manor House very seldom now, and frankly owned himself a fish out of water in Mrs. Tregonell's new circle.
"Everybody is so laboriously lively," he said; "there is an air of forced hilarity. I sigh for the house as it was in your mother's time, Leonard. 'A haunt of ancient peace.'"
"There's not much peace about it now, by Jove," said Leonard. "Why did you put it into my wife's head to ride to hounds?"
"I had nothing to do with it. She asked me to choose her a hunter, and I chose her something good and safe, that's all. But I don't think you ought to object to her hunting, Leonard, or to her doing anything else that may help to keep her in good spirits. She was in a very bad way all the winter."
"Do you mean that she was seriously ill? Their letters to me were so d——d short. I hardly know anything that went on while I was away."