Perhaps nothing that is necessary shocks really sensible people; it is when disagreeable things are perfectly useless and quite avoidable--in theory--that they are most repugnant to men like Edmund Lushington.

He had warned Margaret of what was in store for her, before she had taken the final step; but he had not warned himself that in spite of her bringing-up she might get used to it all and end by not resenting it any more than the rest of the professionals with whom she associated.

It was this that chilled him.
'I hope I'm not interrupting your work,' he said as he sat down.
'My work ?' 'I heard you studying when they let me in.' 'Oh!' His voice sounded very indifferent, and a pause followed Margaret's mild ejaculation.
'It's rather a thankless opera for the soprano, I always think,' he observed.

'The tenor has it all his own way.' '_The Elisir d'Amore_ ?' 'Yes.' 'I've not rehearsed it yet,' said Margaret rather drearily.

'I don't know.' He evidently meant to talk of indifferent things again, as at their last meeting, and she felt that she was groping in the dark for something she had lost.