Still she looked content, as he told himself.

Her glance was frank and calm, without suggestion of lurking anxiety.
Nor was she unoccupied and brooding--witness the counterpane strewn with books, with balls of wool, a sock in leisurely process of knitting, and, in a hollow of it, Mustapha, the brindled cat, luxuriously sleeping curled round against her feet.
"Heaven knows I've no special craving your lady-in-waiting should find a speedy successor," he said.

"But to do without one altogether might appear a rather daring experiment.

Your aunts would be loud in protest." "What matters isn't the aunts, is it, but ourselves ?" Damaris quite gaily took him up.
"But wouldn't you be lonely, my dear, and would you not find it burdensome to run the house yourself ?" "No--no," she cried.

"Not one bit.