w, plunging his gaze deep into the recesses of his neighbour's
lime-tree, where the unseen sparrows chattered with such unflagging
gaiety.

He had always been given to much daydreaming, and it was in the silence
of his rooms of an evening that he turned his phantasmal adventures into
stories for the magazines; here had come to him many an editorial
refusal, but here, too, he had received the news of his first unexpected
success. All his happiest memories were embalmed in those shabby,
badly-furnished rooms.

Now all was changed. Now might there be no longer any soft indulgence
of the hour's mood. His rooms and everything he owned belonged now to
Esther, too. She had objected to most of his photographs, and had
removed them. She hated books, and were he ever so ill-advised as to
open one in her presence, she immediately began to talk, no matter how
silent or how sullen her previous mood had been. If he read aloud to her
she either yawned despairingly, or was tickled into laughter where there
was no reasonable cause. At first Willoughby had tried to educate her,
and had gone hopefully to the task. It is so natural to think you may
make what you will of the woman who loves you. But Esther had no wish to
improve. She evinced all the self-satisfaction of an illiterate mind. To
her husband's gentle admonitions she replied with brevity that she
thought her way quite as good as his; or, if he didn't approve of her
pronunciation, he might do the other thing, she was too old to go to
school again. He gave up the attempt, and, with humiliation at his
previous fatuity, perceived that it was folly to expect that a few weeks
of his companionship could alter or pull up the impressions of years, or
rather of generations.

Yet here he paused to admit a curious thing: it was not only Esther's
bad habits which vexed him, but habits quite unblameworthy in themselves
which he never would have noticed in another, irritated him in her. He
disliked her manner of standing, of walking, of sitting in a chair, of
folding her hands. Like a lover, he was conscious of her proximity
without seeing her. Like a lover, too, his eyes followed her every
movement, his ear noted every change in her voice. But then, instead of
being charmed by everything as the lover is, everything jarred upon him.

What was the meaning of this? Tonight the anomaly pressed upon him: he
reviewed his position. Here was he, quite a young man, just twenty-six
years of age, ma