“Sometimes he’s quite the same; sometimes he’s gay--he’s too gay. And then ...” She looked up. “He sits and thinks; he’ll sit silent for hours. He’s not spoken a word all the morning. And then suddenly ... he’ll shudder. And his eyes aren’t the same; they aren’t the same, you understand. It’s as if he were afraid. Afraid! He cowers into a corner. What is it, Robert? You know.” Grimshaw was silent, pondering. “Tell me!” she said. “You _shall_ tell me; you know. Is it religious mania?” Grimshaw shook his head. “No, I don’t think it can be religious mania.” He added: “It might be hypochondria--sheer anxiety about his health. He was always like that.” “No,” she said, “he hasn’t been near a doctor. It can’t be that.” She looked up at him with a little, birdlike gaze. “I know what it is,” she said, “it’s another woman.” Robert Grimshaw threw up his hands that were still gloved. “You aren’t surprised,” she said, and there was about her whole figure an air of a little and tender calmness. “It’s no good your feigning surprise. I am sure you know all about it. Oh, I know what men are, and women. I have been a nursery governess, you know. Isn’t it true that there was another woman?” and, at his hesitation, she pleaded: “Tell me the truth, there was!” “Well, there was,” he said. “And it was Etta Stackpole,” she accused him. He saw her sit, looking down at the point of her umbrella. “I’ve got to get him well,” she said. “Tell me the truth.” “Yes, it was Lady Hudson,” he answered. “But you aren’t going to ...” “Robert dear,” she said, with her little, clear, appealing voice. “You can’t make such a mistake as to think that I am going to hamper Dudley. It’s my task in life to keep him going. Think it out. I’m not _really_ the girl to give ourselves away. I turned Dudley out of my mother’s house. I ought not to have done it, but mother could not bear him. Perhaps I valued mother more than Dudley--perhaps that was wrong. But I’ve heard you say: ‘Do what you want and take what you get for it.’ I’m taking what I get for it, and it’s easier to do it because I know what men are.” “It wasn’t Dudley’s doing,” Grimshaw said. “We can’t even tell...” “Robert, dear,” she repeated, “I _have_ been a nursery-governess, you know.” “Oh yes,” he answered, “but you’re a woman too.” “Oh yes,” she imitated him, “but I’m a woman of our class. Don’t you see the two things I’ve learned? One is, that we can’t have what we want. I may have wanted ... Well, that does not matter. But if I couldn’t give, I could get--adoration. That’s all there is to it.” Robert Grimshaw said suddenly: “Yes, you could make something out of poor Dudley.”