She changed colour, and he rejoined, laughing also: "Well, you're that at any rate, thank the Lord!"
She pondered, and then questioned: "But in the interval—how are you going to defend yourself for another year?"
"Ah, you've got to see to that; you've got to take a little house in London. You've got to look after me, you know."
It was on the tip of her tongue to flash back: "Oh, if that's all you care—!" But caring was exactly the factor she wanted, as much as possible, to keep out of their talk and their thoughts. She could not ask him how much he cared without laying herself open to the same question; and that way terror lay. As a matter of fact, though Strefford was not an ardent wooer—perhaps from tact, perhaps from temperament, perhaps merely from the long habit of belittling and disintegrating every sentiment and every conviction—yet she knew he did care for her as much as he was capable of caring for anyone. If the element of habit entered largely into the feeling—if he liked her, above all, because he was used to her, knew her views, her indulgences, her allowances, knew he was never likely to be bored, and almost certain to be amused, by her; why, such ingredients though not of the fieriest, were perhaps those most likely to keep his feeling for her at a pleasant temperature. She had had a taste of the tropics, and wanted more equable weather; but
