Page:A strange, sad comedy (IA strangesadcomedy00seawiala).pdf/136

124 everything! Nothing was too good to be used—and the prevailing shabbiness seemed only a part of the comfort of it all. And Letty, like all true women, was more charming in her own home than anywhere else in the world.

Sir Archy, in the corresponding bed-room across the hall, with a corresponding catafalque, petticoated dressing-table, etc., likewise indulged in retrospection before he went to bed. He was not so easy in his mind—no man can be at peace who has two women in his thoughts. He was very sorry the Romaine party were coming. He had not discriminated enough in his attentions between Letty and Ethel Maywood, and the feeling that he might be playing fast and loose with Ethel troubled and annoyed him. But love with him was a much more prosaic and conventional matter, though not less sincere, than with Farebrother, who had the American disregard of consequences in affairs of the heart.

Next morning was an ideal morning for shooting. A white haze lay over the land, tempering the glory of the morning sun. The rime lay over the fields just enough to help