He had thrown
his hat into a chair, and his fingers worked nervously together behind
his back.

'Will you tell me,' he said at length, 'how your position is regarded
by these friends of yours? I don't mean your mother and brother, but the
people who come to this house.'

'I have not asked such people for their opinion.'

'Still, I suppose some sort of explanation has been necessary in your
intercourse with them. How have you represented your relations with me?'

'I can't see that that concerns you.'

'In a manner it does. Certainly it matters very little to me how I am
thought of by people of this kind, but one doesn't like to be reviled
without cause. Have you allowed it to be supposed that I have made life
with me intolerable for you?'

'No, I have not. You insult me by asking the question, but as you
don't seem to understand feelings of that kind I may as well answer you
simply.'

'Then have you told them the truth? That I became so poor you couldn't
live with me?'

'I have never said that in so many words, but no doubt it is understood.
It must be known also that you refused to take the step which might have
helped you out of your difficulties.'

'What step?'

She reminded him of his intention to spend half a year in working at the
seaside.

'I had utterly forgotten it,' he returned with a mocking laugh. 'That
shows how ridiculous such a thing would have been.'

'You are doing no literary work at all?' Amy asked.

'Do you imagine that I have the peace of mind necessary for anything of
that sort?'

This was in a changed voice. It reminded her so strongly of her husband
before his disasters that she could not frame a reply.

'Do you think I am able to occupy myself with the affairs of imaginary
people?'

'I didn't necessarily mean fiction.'

'That I can forget myself, then, in the study of literature?--I wonder
whether you really think of me like that. How, in Heaven's name, do you
suppose I spend my leisure time?'

She made no answer.

'Do you think I take this calamity as light-heartedly as you do, Amy?'

'I am far from taking it light-heartedly.'

'Yet you are in good health. I see no sign that you have suffered.'

She kept silence. Her suffering had been slight enough, and chiefly due
to considerations of social propriety; but she would not avow this, and
did not like to make admission of it to herself. Before her friends she
frequently affected to conceal a profound sorrow; but so l