“Of course there’s some truth in it,” said Wilfred slowly; “but how unfair! . . . It’s true that I can let myself go in a certain way with Stanny, that I can’t with you. What of it? Husbands and wives need not swallow each other. There’s nothing serious in it. Unless you make it serious by wrong thinking. You are always for facing things. Face this, and it will go up in smoke. . . . Stanny and I have a certain way of gassing at each other. We’ve always done it. Speculative. Neither takes the other seriously. It’s an enormous relief. Makes you soar for the moment. . . . I cannot talk to you in a speculative vein, because you always have a personal application in mind. You are jealously guarding your own. You refer all my ideas back to our life together. That dries me up. You get your feelings hurt. I have to be studying how not to hurt your feelings. —I don’t mind, dear. To be forced to think of somebody else was my saving. It’s not serious. But you see there _is_ such a thing as man-talk. There is woman-talk too.” “I let my women friends go when I married.” “You should not have done so. A wife needs reserves . . .” Frances Mary’s face was tragic. “You are reproaching me now because I . . .” “Now, Fanny! Isn’t that exactly what I said!” Her head went down. “Once you said I was disinterested,” she murmured. “Well, I was wrong. And you knew it at the time! . . . I’m glad I was wrong. Disinterestedness is a good deal like soda crackers.” He reached a hand across the table. “Fanny, old girl . . .” “Don’t . . . now,” she said sorely. He couldn’t tell whether she was blaming him now, or herself. “Write to Jessie Dartrey,” he suggested. “She’d come out like a shot.” “Poor Jessie . . . !” she murmured. Wilfred breathed with relief. He saw that the corner was turned. “Wilfred, I can’t help disliking Stanny!” she said with a rush, imploringly. “It doesn’t matter—if you face it out with yourself.” Frances Mary started busily to work on her sock again. Her expression assumed to wipe out everything that had been said since she dropped it. “If you don’t write to Stanny at once,” she said to Wilfred rebukingly, “you’ll miss the last collection. . . . And oh! don’t forget to carry your old shoes to the cobbler’s to-morrow. They wont see you through three days’ walking . . .” III