After she had sewed awhile with a methodical tightening of all the
buttons, and an unconscious tightening of her lips too, she said:

"Well, you'll come back and find us all the same."

He roused himself slightly.

"I hope so. Take care of yourselves."

She could have screamed at him.

"We shall jog along here," she said.

He looked at her abstractedly. "Take the kids to Littlehampton in the
summer; give yourselves a change. Your mother'll go with you, I
daresay."

"How jolly!"

He took her seriously. He seemed so densely absorbed in what was
coming to him that he only just heard her reply.

He said absently: "I hope it will be; look after yourselves."

She went back, in her busy mind, to the honeymoon adventure on which
they had both embarked six and a quarter years ago. Then they had gone
out hand-in-hand like children into a big dark and they had found
light. Now they had dropped hands; and at the first chance he ran off
alone, a boy once more, hungry for thrills. A strong yearning rose in
her to run after him, catch his hand again, and set out with him. But
there was much in the way; the butcher and baker, speaking through her
mouth, had dulled his ears to her voice; he had forgotten how to hold
hands; they were out of tune. Nature had sent them, all those years
ago, converging together; and married life had sent them apart again.

Married life!

She traced the pattern of it, which she saw in her mind, upon the
table with her needle tip--

[Illustration:
Osborn \ / Osborn
\ /
\/ [Symbol: Moon] Honeymoon
/\
/ \
Marie / \ Marie]

It was like that.

She saw wet drops falling upon the table; they were her tears. Her
husband happened to look up at the moment, and, seeing them too,
looked hastily away again. He did not want to see them; there were too
many tears in marriage.

But soon he would be away from marriage for a whole year.

He did not want her to cry; it was terribly irritating, and she had
cried too much--not lately, but in the first years. Lately she had
disciplined herself better, become more cheerful, realised, no doubt,
that she was quite as well off as other men's wives, and really had
nothing to weep for. But, in case those tears which had fallen should
be precursors of one of the old storms, he knocked out his pipe, rose,
and said:

"Well, I'll be off to bed. I shall have a lot to do to-morrow."

She answered: "Ver