TEE SILVER FOX 97 



his hand along the rug, and took hers with 

 confident tenderness. It was gone from 

 him in a moment, and Slaney, with that 

 level politeness of voice that is the distilled 

 essence of a perfected anger, was telling 

 Lady Susan that her head ached, and that 

 she would like to sit by the door. 



Lady Susan changed places with her, and 

 presently fell to arranging, with Mr. Glasgow, 

 the details of an expedition up the new rail- 

 w^ay line in a cattle-truck. Their voices 

 sank gradually to that level that indicates 

 to an outside world that it is superfluous. 

 What they said seemed to be wholly trivial, 

 and flagrant only in aridness ; yet the low 

 voices, half-lost in the noise of the wheels, 

 had a quality that drove Bun bury and Slaney 

 into a conversation lame with consciousness 

 of what it tried to ignore. 



Glasgow's dog-cart was waiting for him 

 at French's Court, and it waited long 

 before the supper was over, at which Lady 

 Susan made amends for her philanthropy 

 in cigarettes and hock and seltzer. When 



