She
knew that. She never blamed him. He had no need for all her causeries
and things. She would be dull to argue with; and yet----

Yet it is only human, only feminine, when one has got a clever husband
and is adventuring on the long road of Art, to wish that he should take
one's hand.

And she was proud of him.

Her simple mind had not yet probed the inwardness of Mrs. Herbertson's
"mistake." It did not seem peculiar to her that Mr. Alison should be
seen always, and he only, as her companion at the Institute. It merely
was that she wished it might sometimes have been Hubert. She longed to
hear his views on all of it, and it would be nice, too, to show him.
It looked so odd that he would never come, when quite old-looking women
brought husbands triumphantly along!

At length, when fifteen months of lectures gave her a new confidence,
she tackled him point-blank one afternoon while they were walking on
the Heath.

He looked at her reproachfully, as though he were a master who had just
been asked for a half-holiday.

"My dear girl," he said, "is that quite logical?"

She knew at once that hope was dead. It always was when logic once
appeared. She never had a chance.

"I don't know why not," she said gaily, for nowadays she did not go
back to her kennel quite so easily. They had been married for two
years.

Hubert was forced to put the thing in words.

"Well you see, my dear," he started, slowly, "I dare say other husbands
have got their work finished by six o'clock. In fact"--and he
brightened visibly--"that is really why they fixed that hour, I dare
say. City men are back. But it's my best work-hour, you know."

"_Is_ it?" laughed Helena, and looked at him. Then, as he did not seem
to see the joke, "The _morning_ is, you know, if I ask you to come out
shopping. I'm afraid, Hugh, you're just a little naughty!" And she
shook her finger.

"No," he said shortly, still not very much amused, for once, at her
nice childish ways. "They _both_ are.... It's not much for a man to
work, just two short goes at it, and I simply can't spare the time,
however much I'd like to. I mustn't go out between tea and dinner when
I'm on a book."

"You used to, though," persisted Helena, "in Devonshire."

It is a rash wife who recalls to her husband the days of single life.

"Very likely," he answered impatiently; "but we weren't married then.
I can't afford it now."

The rash wife had it, full between the