"It is epigrammatic, all right. I can't quite see the tenderness. You will have to explain." She shook her head, with the ghost of a smile. "There are some things that can't be explained, Victor,--the humor of a joke, for instance. If you don't see it, it isn't there--for you." Somehow her reply embarrassed him. He felt that he had been weighed in the balance and found wanting, and he could not see why. "You quote Holmes a good deal, don't you?" "Yes. He says such bright things." And she added eagerly, "Victor, let us read some together this winter. Father and I used to have such good times reading together." Victor put up his hand as if to ward off an attack. "Really, Margaret, don't you think you are asking a little too much of me? to settle down to evenings of reading the Autocrat! If you would suggest having some people in to play cards now." "Very well," she returned, quietly, "we will have some people in to play cards then." "I am afraid I can't count upon all my evenings," he said, hastily. "I find that things have accumulated in my absence, and I will have to be at the office occasionally at night. Not often, but sometimes." "I should not want to interfere with your business, Victor, but--" "Well? What's the rest of it?" "I was going to say that the men I have known best have been able to work enough in the day and give their evenings to their families." She paused a moment during which she thought, "I certainly have a right to say this--and it ought to be said. I am not complaining. We ought to plan out our life together." Aloud she continued, "That has always seemed to me the right way. I think so much depends now upon our starting right." He rose hastily. "We will talk that over some other time. I really have to go down to-night. I have promised to meet a man. You don't object? You will not be afraid?" "I shall not be afraid," she said. She went to the door with him and stood looking after him until he disappeared. When she came back she was shivering a little. She sat before the fire and looked into its depths. Then she raised the skirt of her dainty house-gown and rested her slippered feet on the brass that was burnished until it shone. "_Two_ feet on a fender," she said with a dreary little smile. She reasoned with herself afterwards. "It may not be the best way to do--to live--" she told herself, "but I hope I am womanly enough not to be jealous of my husband's business." Some months later Mrs. Kirtley remarked to her husband, "Victor De Jarnette must be doing very well in his business. Margaret tells me that he has to go to the office almost every night of late, there is such a rush of work. Poor child! She is not well, and is nervous at being alone, though she is very brave about it. I think he should be at home more just now--a man of his means--even if he has to sacrifice his business somewhat. I hope he will not become too mercenary."