threshold of his expeditions, such as Cairo or St. Petersburg or
Constantinople, but her own tastes in the matter of roving were more or
less condensed within an area that comprised Cannes, Homburg, the
Scottish Highlands, and the Norwegian Fiords. 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. At one's bidding was a service of coffee, prepared with rather
more forethought and circumspection than would go to the preparation of a
revolution in a South American Republic.