Things outlandish and barbaric appealed to her chiefly when presented under artistic but highly civilised stage management on the boards of Covent Garden, and if she wanted to look at wolves or sand grouse, she preferred doing so in the company of an intelligent Fellow of the Zoological Society on some fine Sunday afternoon in Regent's Park.

It was one of the bonds of union and good-fellowship between her husband and herself that each understood and sympathised with the other's tastes without in the least wanting to share them; they went their own ways and were pleased and comrade-like when the ways happened to run together for a span, without self-reproach or heart- searching when the ways diverged.

Moreover, they had separate and adequate banking accounts, which constitute, if not the keys of the matrimonial Heaven, at least the oil that lubricates them.
Yeovil found Cicely and breakfast waiting for him in the cool breakfast- room, and enjoyed, with the appreciation of a recent invalid, the comfort and resources of a meal that had not to be ordered or thought about in advance, but seemed as though it were there, fore-ordained from the beginning of time in its smallest detail.

Each desire of the breakfasting mind seemed to have its realisation in some dish, lurking unobtrusively in hidden corners until asked for.

Did one want grilled mushrooms, English fashion, they were there, black and moist and sizzling, and extremely edible; did one desire mushrooms a la Russe, they appeared, blanched and cool and toothsome under their white blanketing of sauce.