When Louis Trevelyan heard on the stairs the step of the dangerous
man, he got up from his chair as though he too would have gone into
the drawing-room, and it would perhaps have been well had he done
so. Could he have done this, and kept his temper with the man, he
would have paved the way for an easy reconciliation with his wife.
But when he reached the door of his room, and had placed his hand
upon the lock, he withdrew again. He told himself he withdrew because
he would not allow himself to be jealous; but in truth he did so
because he knew he could not have brought himself to be civil to
the man he hated. So he sat down, and took up his pen, and began
to cudgel his brain about the scientific article. He was intent
on raising a dispute with some learned pundit about the waves of
sound, but he could think of no other sound than that of the light
steps of Colonel Osborne as he had gone upstairs. He put down his
pen, and clenched his fist, and allowed a black frown to settle
upon his brow. 'What right had the man to come there, unasked by
him, and disturb his happiness? And then this poor wife of his,
who knew so little of English life, who had lived in the Mandarin
Islands almost since she had been a child, who had lived in one
colony or another almost since she had been born, who had had so
few of those advantages for which he should have looked in marrying
a wife, how was the poor girl to conduct herself properly when
subjected to the arts and practised villanies of this viper? And
yet the poor girl was so stiff in her temper, had picked up such a
trick of obstinacy in those tropical regions, that Louis Trevelyan
felt that he did not know how to manage her. He too had heard how
Jane Marriott had been carried off to Naples after she had become
Mrs Poole. Must he too carry off his wife to Naples in order to
place her out of the reach of this hyena? It was terrible to him
to think that he must pack up everything and run away from such