CHAPTER V
THE TRIVIAL ROUND
AS he had done almost every night for the last twenty-five years, Sir Montague Merline lay awake for some time, thinking of his wife.
Was she happy? Of course she was. Any woman is happy with the man she really loves.
Did she ever think of him? Of course she did. Any woman thinks, at times, of the man in whose arms she has lain. No doubt his photo stood in a silver frame on her desk or piano. Huntingten would not mind that. Nothing petty about Lord Huntingten—and he had been very fond of "good old Merline," "dear old stick-in-the-mud," as he had so often called him.
Of course she was happy. Why shouldn't she be? Although Huntingten was poor as English peers go, there was enough for decent quiet comfort—and Marguerite had never been keen on making a splash. She had not minded poverty as Lady Merline. … She was certainly as happy as the day was long, and it would have been the damnedest cruelty and caddishness to have turned up and spoilt things. It would have wrecked her life and Huntingten's too. …
Splendid chap, Huntingten—so jolly clever and original, so full of ideas and unconventionality. … "How to be Happy though Titled." … "How to be a Man though a Peer." … "Efforts for the
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