Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/146



By Hubert Crackanthorpe

sat in a corner of a large London drawing-room, and the two men stood before her—Hillier Haselton, her husband, and George Swann, her husband's cousin; and, beyond them, the mellow light of shaded candles, vague groupings of black coats, white shirt-fronts, and gay-tinted dresses, and the noisy hum of conversation.

The subject that the two men were discussing—and more especially Swann's blunt earnestness—stirred her, though through out it she had been unpleasantly conscious of a smallness, almost a pettiness, in Hillier's aspect.

"Well, but why not, my dear Swann? Why not be unjust: man's been unjust to woman for so many years."

Hillier let his voice fall listlessly, as if to rebuke the other's vehemence; and to hint that he was tired of the topic, looked round at his wife, noting at the same time that Swann was observing how he held her gaze in his meaningly. And the unexpectedness of his own attitude charmed him—his hot defence of an absurd theory, obviously evoked by a lover-like desire to please her. Others, whose admiration he could trust, would, he surmised, have Rh