“And you wouldn’t say that the really beautiful things, such as love is, say, to a woman like myself. No vileness gathers about that?” “N-no,” he answered, with some hesitation, wishing that he had never started his mild little rabbit of an epigram. He looked away, at the sky-line, for a moment. Then, with sudden desperation, he charged her to change the subject, his face still red from his former rout. “Olivia,” he said. “If I drew you a ship, would you embroider it, or make a mat of it?” “Yes,” she said. “Draw the _Broken Heart_. I could work it for Tom’s birthday. I should be very glad of it, after I’ve finished this.” Perrin helped her to cut a square of canvas from a little roll she had obtained from the sailmaker. He settled himself down to draw. Olivia stitched with her silks. “It is so curious,” she said at last, “that you should have known my husband--that you knew him years ago, when we stayed at Eltons together. Before I knew him.” “Yes. I’ve thought that, too. And now we’re all here together. And Eltons is still going on, behind us there. Rooks in the elms. And your aunt Pile in her chair.” She seemed to reflect for a moment, as though thinking of the beautiful house, where life moved so nobly, like a strain of music. Perrin knew that she was thinking of Stukeley. “Oh, you women,” he said to himself. “You give everything for a pennyweight of love, and even that is never paid to you.” He would have given much, poor moth, to be back at Eltons, young and handsome, with the shy, gauche girl who had since become Olivia. “I didn’t know then,” he said to himself, “and you couldn’t guess. And now we’re driving to it. Shipwreck. Shipwreck. And I should have been so happy with you.” “What was Tom like then?” said Olivia. “Who? Oh, your husband. You see I didn’t know him well,” said Perrin in confusion. “He was--I think he was a lot thinner than he is now.” “How did he look in his uniform?” “His uniform?” said Perrin. “You see. I didn’t see him in his uniform. You see it was after he’d been kicked---- After he’d---- You know what. What is the word? After he’d been----” Stammering and blushing, he managed to get out of his difficulty. Olivia thought that he had been afflicted by that impediment in his speech, or partial aphasia, which sometimes checked his conversation. She pitied him, while feeling that his companionship was painful. He himself turned very red, and bit his tongue. He thought that the six weeks at sea should have taught him the guard for all such sudden thrusts. “After he’d left the army?” she said kindly. “Yes. Yes. It was,” he answered. He turned again to draw the image of the _Broken Heart_, as he had seen her from without, some seven long weeks before. Olivia gave him a moment’s grace to recover his natural colour. Captain Cammock caught her eye, and saluted as he took his stand with his quadrant. She was smiling back at him when her husband’s head appeared on the poop ladder. Perrin looked up quickly.