Nor, as he had heard from various quarters, was she any friend of Stella Fregelius, any more than she had been to Jane Rose.

It struck him that even now she might be employed in sowing scandal about them both, and for Stella's sake the thought made him furious.

But even if it were so he did not see what he could do; therefore he tried to think he was mistaken, and to dismiss the matter from his mind.
Colonel Monk had written to say that he was coming home on the Wednesday, but he did not, in fact, put in an appearance till the half-past six train on the following Saturday evening, when he arrived beautifully dressed in the most irreproachable black, and in a very good temper.
"Ah, Morris, old fellow," he said, "I am very pleased to see you again.
After all, there is no place like home, and at my time of life nothing to equal quiet.

I can't tell you how sick I got of that French hole.

If it hadn't been for Mary, and my old friend, Lady Rawlins, who, as usual, was in trouble with that wretched husband of hers--he is an imbecile now, you know--I should have been back long before.