ft humility, such as might have become the least
original of wives. 'Watch my face, and be on your guard? Since when
have I desired you to be a simpleton?'

'I'm quite serious. It isn't foolish at all. I want to please you;
that's all I mean, dear.'

He gazed at her, wondering, inclined to laugh, yet withheld from it by
an uneasy feeling.

'This kind of talk means defective circulation, lost appetite, and so
on,' was his half-joking answer. 'The way to please me is to get some
colour into your cheeks again, and snub me for my ignorance of music,
and be your own arrogant self. But listen. You're quite mistaken in
thinking I want to stay here till Hugh and his wife come. It won't do.
You're getting far too sweet and docile, and everything detestable. I
had no idea of marrying an angel; it's too bad if you turn seraphic
upon my hands. I wonder, now, whether, by way of pleasing me, you would
answer a plain question?'

'I'll try.'

'Have you been wanting to get away from this place--I mean, to live
somewhere else?'

'I? What can have made you think so?'

'That isn't trying to answer a question, you know.'

Alma, after looking keenly at him, had turned her face to the window.
She kept silence, and wore a look of calm reflectiveness.

'Have you been bored and wearied by this life?' Harvey asked in his
most good-natured tone.

'I don't think I have ever for a moment shown a sign of it,' replied
Alma, with grave conviction.

'So much the worse, if it meant that you concealed your thoughts.'

'I shall always be content, Harvey, so long as I see you are living the
kind of life that suits you.'

He uttered a shout of humorous, yet half-genuine, exasperation.

'Do you want me to swear it's a long time since I lost the habit, but
it might strike you as manly, and perhaps I had better practise again.
What has it to do with _you_, the kind of life that suits _me_? Don't
you remember my talking about that before we were married? I've had a
suspicion that you were getting rather into that state of mind. You
dropped your music, and partly, I've no doubt, because you didn't find
enough intelligent sympathy in me. You went in for painting, and you've
dropped that----'

'It was winter, you see,' Alma interrupted.

'Yes, but that wasn't the only reason. It meant general failure of
energy--the kind of thing I've known myself, only too well.'

'What--here?' asked Alma, with some alacrity.

'I meant now and again, all thr