ummer afternoon, while Harold rested indoors, Mavis gave Perigal
tea beneath the shade of a witch-elm on the lawn. She was looking
particularly alluring; if she were at all doubtful of this fact, the
admiration expressed in Perigal's eyes would have reassured her. They
had been talking lightly, brightly, each in secret pursuing the bent of
their own feelings for the other, when the spectre of Mavis's spiritual
troublings blotted out the sunlight and the brilliant gladness of the
summer afternoon. She was silent for awhile, presently to be aware that
Perigal's eyes were fixed on her face. She looked towards him, at which
he sighed deeply.

"Aren't you happy?" she asked.

"How can I be?"

"You've everything you want in life."

"Have I? Since when?"

"The day you married."

"Rot!"

"What do you mean?"

"I can tell you after all that" (here he caught Mavis's eye)--"after
we've been such friends--as far as I'm concerned, my marriage has been
a ghastly failure."

"You mustn't tell me that," declared Mavis, to whom the news brought a
secret joy.

"I can surely tell you after--after we've been such dear friends. But
we don't hit it off at all. I can't stick Vic at any price."

"Nonsense! She's pretty and charming. Everyone who knows her says the
same."

"When they first know her; then they think no end of a lot of her; but
after a time everyone's 'off' her, although they haven't spotted the
reason."

"Have you?"

"Unfortunately, that's been my privilege. Vic has enough imagination to
tell her to do the right thing and all that; but otherwise, she's
utterly, constitutionally cold."

"Nonsense! She must have sympathy to 'do the right thing,' as you call
it."

"Not necessarily. Hers comes from the imagination, as I told you; but
her graceful tact chills one in no time. I might as well have married
an icicle."

"I'm sorry," remarked Mavis, saying what was untrue.

"And then Vic has a conventional mind: it annoys me awfully.
Conventions are the cosmetics of morality."

"Where did you read that?"

"And these conventions, that are the rudiments of what were once
full-blooded necessities, are most practised by those who have the
least call for their protection. Pity me."

"I do."

Perigal's eyes brightened.

"I'm unhappy too," said Mavis, after a pause.

"Not really?"

"I wondered if you would help me."

"Try me."

Perigal's eyes glittered, a manifestation which Mavis noticed.

"You know how y