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188 dthat the entertainments we give, in the guests we invite, I hold we should consult nobody but ourselves and our own tastes."

He paused for a moment in his "quarter-decking." as Lucia called it, and looked at her. She met his glance quite calmly and spoke quite politely.

"Excuse me," she said, "but if you want to discuss those affairs with me at any length, I will interrupt you at once, instead of later, to ask you if this telegram will do:

Edgar and I charmed to see you on Tuesday. Pray stop a full week. Delighted you can come.

Edgar rang a bell.

"Yes, excellent," he said; and when the servant had taken it: "I should like to discuss things with you at some length, as you say."

Lucia had felt for many weeks now that something of this sort was simmering in her husband's mind. Times innumerable she had felt by that sixth sense of instinct, which is surer than all the other senses put together, that their life was not coming up to his expectations. Brilliant as it all was, it was another style of brilliance than that which she had planned for him. That idea of hers which had so appealed to him, and been so identical with his own that they should be at Brayton a great deal, entertain largely but locally, and throw culture broadcast over Brixham, as a ripe mushroom scatters spores, had, to say the truth, not been realized at present; nor, indeed, in Lucia's plans for the autumn and winter did it seem likely to be realized. During the Brayton week, it is true, she had asked—so she said at the time—every man, woman, and child in Brixham, including Mayor, Aldermen, and even the Coroner, to an immense garden-party, and had even entertained a large number to dinner and a French farce, but the experiment had not been a success. Brixham, it was evident to her, did not mix at all with the other guests in her house; and though she introduced all Brixham whose names she knew to all London, they had nothing whatever to say to each other, and soon all Brixham congregated together among itself again, like some large lump of food that would not be assimilated. Even more disastrous was the French play, because the Dean's wife, who knew French, got up in the middle, and signalled to her daughters and her husband to follow her. But he, most unfortunately, was asleep, and she hissed at him in awful tones, "Come away, Henry; it is not right for