a brute.
There are many Potiphar's wives who never dream of any mischief, and
Josephs who are very anxious to escape, though they are asked to
return only whisper for whisper. Mrs. Dobbs Broughton had asked him
whether he wished that her tongue should be cut out, and he had of
course replied that her words had always been a joy to him,--never
a trouble. It occurred to him as he made his little speech that it
would only have served her right if he had answered her quite in
another strain; but she was a woman, and was young and pretty, and
was entitled to flattery. "They have always been a joy to me," he
said, repeating his last words as he strove to continue his work.

"A deadly joy," she replied, not quite knowing what she herself
meant. "A deadly joy, Conway. I wish with all my heart that we had
never known each other."

"I do not. I will never wish away the happiness of my life, even
should it be followed by misery."

"You are a man, and if trouble comes upon you, you can bear it on
your own shoulders. A woman suffers more, just because another's
shoulders may have to bear the burden."

"When she has got a husband, you mean?"

"Yes,--when she has a husband."

"It's the same with a man when he has a wife." Hitherto the
conversation had had so much of milk-and-water in its composition
that Dalrymple found himself able to keep it up and go on with his
background at the same time. If she could only be kept in the same
dim cloud of sentiment, if the hot rays of the sun of romance could
be kept from breaking through the mist till Miss Van Siever should
come, it might still be well. He had known her to wander about within
the clouds for an hour together, without being able to find her way
into the light. "It's all the same with a man when he has got a
wife," he said. "Of course one has to suffer for two, when one, so to
say, is two."

"And what happens when one has to suffer for three?" she asked.

"You mean when a woman has children?"

"I mean nothing of the kind, Conway; and you must know that I do not,
unless your feelings are indeed blunted. But worldly success has, I
suppose, blunted them."

"I rather fancy not," he said. "I think they are pretty nearly as
sharp as ever."

"I know mine are. Oh, how I wish I could rid myself of them! But it
cannot be done. Age will not blunt them,--I am sure of that," said
Mrs. Broughton. "I wish it would."

He had determined not to talk about herself if the subject coul