"Certainly not. I have no wish or right to bring it up. How is Lady Hartledon?"
"She is very well. And now what has kept you away, Carr? We have been in London nearly a fortnight, and you've never been near me. I thought you were going to quarrel."
"I did not know you had returned."
"Not know it! Why all the newspapers had it in amongst the 'fashionable intelligence.'"
"I have more to do with my time than to look at the fashionable portion of the papers. Not being fashionable myself, it doesn't interest me."
"Yes, it's about a fortnight since we came back to this hateful place," returned Hartledon, his light tone subsiding into seriousness. "I am out of conceit with England just now; and would far rather have gone to the Antipodes."
"Then why did you come back to it?" inquired the barrister, in surprise.
"My wife gave me no choice. She possesses a will of her own. It is the ordinary thing, perhaps, for wives to do so."
"Some do, and some don't," observed Thomas Carr, who never flattered at the expense of truth. "Are you going down to Hartledon?"
"Hartledon!" with a perceptible shiver. "In the mind I am in, I shall never visit Hartledon again; there are some in its vicinity I would rather not insult by my presence. Why do you bring up disagreeable subjects?"