"How, do you mean--?" the door opened, and the maid
announced: "Dinner is served, ma'am."

Marie sprang up and put her hand kindly in his arm.

"Come along," she said. "We have all your favourite things, so I hope
you're hungry."

CHAPTER XXII

PLAIN DEALING

Re-entering the dining-room Osborn was struck by its comfort and
charm. It was a room humanised by the hand of a kind and clever woman.
And how well-ordered his table was! How nice his silver looked! How
well his wife looked! What good cooking he could command! And in what
attractively comfortable circumstances he now found himself after that
year which had ended by palling; that year in which he had done as
other men--free men!

There was no place like home, for permanence; no woman like the wife
of one's choice, for permanence. These were the things which mattered.

He was moved to speak to her in some measure of this thought during
dinner. They were not separated from one another by the whole breadth
of the table. He sat on his wife's right hand, and the maid served
them from the sideboard, an arrangement which pleased him because it
saved him the trouble of carving, and also because it was rather
smart, he thought, for home, where things generally tended to be
dowdy.

"I've had an awf'ly good time, this last year," he confided, "but I'm
glad to be back. There's nothing like one's own home and one's own
girl." The maid having gone to the kitchen, he reached for and
squeezed his wife's hand. "I'm going to be an awf'ly good boy now
you've got me again," he assured her.

"Don't bore yourself," she said with gentle politeness.

"What--what queer things women say!" he observed, after a pause, in
which he had regarded her with some surprise.

"Not so queer as the things men do," she replied thoughtfully.

He started and felt a flush creeping from his collar to the roots of
his hair. She spoke almost as if she knew of the folly and fun--but
even as the idea came to him he knew it to be impossible. It was just
one of the half-bitter remarks which wives made. Bitterness in a woman
was horrible. The flush on his face had been imperceptible to her in
the roseate light of the pink candle-shades, he was glad to think; but
he waited until it had subsided before he spoke with a hint of
reproof.

"I say, don't try sarcasm. Sarcasm in a woman jars, somehow."

"I wasn't sarcastic, really." Her tone was of raillery and somehow he
didn't like that she sho