Miriam, "was it?"

"But I wanted to go out, and it was all right. The Trent IS full."

"And did you go to Barton?" she asked.

"No; we had tea in Clifton."

"DID you! That would be nice."

"It was! The jolliest old woman! She gave us several pompom dahlias, as
pretty as you like."

Miriam bowed her head and brooded. He was quite unconscious of
concealing anything from her.

"What made her give them you?" she asked.

He laughed.

"Because she liked us--because we were jolly, I should think."

Miriam put her finger in her mouth.

"Were you late home?" she asked.

At last he resented her tone.

"I caught the seven-thirty."

"Ha!"

They walked on in silence, and he was angry.

"And how IS Clara?" asked Miriam.

"Quite all right, I think."

"That's good!" she said, with a tinge of irony. "By the way, what of her
husband? One never hears anything of him."

"He's got some other woman, and is also quite all right," he replied.
"At least, so I think."

"I see--you don't know for certain. Don't you think a position like that
is hard on a woman?"

"Rottenly hard!"

"It's so unjust!" said Miriam. "The man does as he likes--"

"Then let the woman also," he said.

"How can she? And if she does, look at her position!"

"What of it?"

"Why, it's impossible! You don't understand what a woman forfeits--"

"No, I don't. But if a woman's got nothing but her fair fame to feed on,
why, it's thin tack, and a donkey would die of it!"

So she understood his moral attitude, at least, and she knew he would
act accordingly.

She never asked him anything direct, but she got to know enough.

Another day, when he saw Miriam, the conversation turned to marriage,
then to Clara's marriage with Dawes.

"You see," he said, "she never knew the fearful importance of marriage.
She thought it was all in the day's march--it would have to come--and
Dawes--well, a good many women would have given their souls to get
him; so why not him? Then she developed into the femme incomprise, and
treated him badly, I'll bet my boots."

"And she left him because he didn't understand her?"

"I suppose so. I suppose she had to. It isn't altogether a question
of understanding; it's a question of living. With him, she was only
half-alive; the rest was dormant, deadened. And the dormant woman was
the femme incomprise, and she HAD to be awakened."

"And what about him."

"I don't know. I rather think he loves her as much as he can, b