the other. It won't spring quite so well, and
it will bend a little."

She was still disposed to rebel at this conclusion. "I don't see why it
has to be that way," she insisted. "Why it can't be a perfect thing
instead of just a compromise. Why being friends and partners shouldn't
make us better lovers, and why being lovers shouldn't make us better
friends."

"Like the doctrine of the Trinity," he murmured. "'Three in one; one in
three. Without confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.' It's
a wonderful idea, certainly."

"Well, then," she demanded, "isn't it what we ought to try for? The very
best there is?"

"That's what they tell us," he admitted. "'Aim high,' they say. I'm not
sure it isn't better sense to aim at something you can hit. Why, look at
us, these last three weeks! We said we were going to have a month of
pure happiness. One hundred per cent. pure. We waked up every morning
telling ourselves we'd got to be happy, and we made ourselves miserable
every night wondering if we'd been happy enough."

"I'm glad you were miserable, too," she said. "I was _so_ ashamed of
myself for being."

After a while he said, "Here's what we've got to build on: Whatever else
it may or may not be, this relation between us is a permanent thing.
We've lived with each other and without each other, and we know which we
want. If we find it has its limitations and drawbacks we needn't worry.
Just go ahead and make the best of it we can. There's no law that
decrees we've got to be happy. When we _are_ happy it'll be so much to
the good. And when we aren't ..."

She gave a contented little laugh and cuddled closer down against him.
"You talk like Solomon in all his solemnity," she said. "But you can't
imagine that we're going to be unhappy. Really."

His answer was that perhaps he couldn't imagine it, but that he knew it,
just the same. "Even an ordinary marriage isn't any too easy; a
marriage, I mean, where it's quite well understood which of the parties
to it shall always submit to the other; and which of them is the
important one who's always to have the right of way. There's generally
something perfectly unescapable that decides that question. But with us
there isn't. So the question who's got to give in will have to be
decided on its merits every time a difference arises."

She burlesqued a look of extreme apprehension. She was deeply and
utterly content with life just then. But he wouldn't be diverted.

"T