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and was incapable of the bad taste of making pointed al-
lusions. This was not a form of revenge, of course; she had
no suspicion of his wishing to punish her by an exhibi-
tion of disillusionment; she did him the justice to believe
it had simply occurred to him that she would now take a
good-natured interest in knowing he was resigned. It was
the resignation of a healthy, manly nature, in which sen-
timental wounds could never fester. British politics had
cured him; she had known they would. She gave an envi-
ous thought to the happier lot of men, who are always free
to plunge into the healing waters of action. Lord Warburton
of course spoke of the past, but he spoke of it without im-
plications; he even went so far as to allude to their former
meeting in Rome as a very jolly time. And he told her he
had been immensely interested in hearing of her marriage
and that it was a great pleasure for him to make Mr. Os-
mond’s acquaintance-since he could hardly be said to have
made it on the other occasion. He had not written to her at
the time of that passage in her history, but he didn’t apolo-
gize to her for this. The only thing he implied was that they
were old friends, intimate friends. It was very much as an
intimate friend that he said to her, suddenly, after a short
pause which he had occupied in smiling, as he looked about
him, like a person amused, at a provincial entertainment,
by some innocent game of guesses
-”Well now, I suppose you’re very happy and all that sort
of thing?’
Isabel answered with a quick laugh; the tone of his re-
mark struck her almost as the accent of comedy. ‘Do you

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