ly. And this intensity
gages for me the strength of what else was in him.

Mrs. Pethel's love, though less explicit, was not less evidently
profound. But the maternal instinct is less attractive to an onlooker,
because he takes it more for granted than the paternal. What endeared
poor Mrs. Pethel to me was--well, the inevitability of the epithet I
give her. She seemed, poor thing, so essentially out of it; and by
"it" is meant the glowing mutual affinity of husband and child. Not
that she didn't, in her little way, assert herself during the meal.
But she did so, I thought, with the knowledge that she didn't count,
and never would count. I wondered how it was that she had, in that
Cambridge bar-room long ago, counted for Pethel to the extent of
matrimony. But from any such room she seemed so utterly remote that
she might well be in all respects now an utterly changed woman. She
did preeminently look as if much had by some means been taken out of
her, with no compensatory process of putting in. Pethel looked so very
young for his age, whereas she would have had to be really old to look
young for hers. I pitied her as one might a governess with two charges
who were hopelessly out of hand. But a governess, I reflected, can
always give notice. Love tied poor Mrs. Pethel fast to her present
situation.

As the three of them were to start next day on their tour through
France, and as the four of us were to make a tour to Rouen this
afternoon, the talk was much about motoring, a theme which Miss Peggy's
enthusiasm made almost tolerable. I said to Mrs. Pethel, with more
good-will than truth, that I supposed she was "very keen on it." She
replied that she was.

"But, darling Mother, you aren't. I believe you hate it. You're
ALWAYS asking father to go slower. And what IS the fun of just
crawling along?"

"Oh, come, Peggy, we never crawl!" said her father.

"No, indeed," said her mother in a tone of which Pethel laughingly said
it would put me off coming out with them this afternoon. I said, with
an expert air to reassure Mrs. Pethel, that it wasn't fast driving, but
only bad driving, that was a danger.

"There, Mother!" cried Peggy. "Isn't that what we're always telling
you?"

I felt that they were always either telling Mrs. Pethel something or,
as in the matter of that intended bath, not telling her something. It
seemed to me possible that Peggy advised her father about his
"investments." I wondered