a secret jest with Ralph Bevan.

She found Fanny established behind her tea-table in the low room, dim
with its oak panelling above the long lines of the bookcases, where
Fanny's fluttering smile made movement and a sort of light.

Her husband sat facing her in his brown leather chair and in the pose,
the wonderful pose of his portrait; only the sobriety of his navy-blue
serge had fined it down, giving him a factitious slenderness. He hadn't
seen her come in. He sat there in innocence and unawareness; and
afterwards it gave her a little pang of remorse remembering how innocent
he had then seemed to her and unaware.

"This is my husband, Barbara. Horatio, you haven't met Miss Madden."

His eyes bulged with the startled innocence of a creature taken unaware.
He had just lifted his face, with its dripping moustache, from his
teacup, and though he carried off this awkwardness with an unabashed
sweep of his pocket-handkerchief, you could see that he was sensitive;
he hated you to catch him in any gesture that was less than noble. All
his gestures were noble and his attitudes. He was noble as he got up,
slowly, unfolding his great height, tightening by a movement of his
shoulders his great breadth. He looked down at her superbly and held out
his hand; it closed on hers in a large genial clasp.

"So this is my secretary, is it?"

"Yes. And don't forget she's my companion as well as your secretary."

"I never forget anything that you wish me to remember." (Only he said