Mr. Sack, his fingers clasping and unclasping themselves behind his back, started walking up and down the room. Anna-Felicitas, forgetful of what Aunt Alice would have said, sat down on the edge of the table and began to be interested in Mrs. Sack. "The wives I've seen," she remarked, watching Mr. Sack with friendly and interested eyes, "who were chiefly Aunt Alice--that's Uncle Arthur's wife, the one we're the nieces of--seemed to put up with the utmost contumely from their husbands and yet didn't budge. You must have been something awful to yours." "I worshipped Mrs. Sack," burst out Mr. Sack. "I worshipped her. I do worship her. She was the handsomest, brightest woman in Boston. I was as proud of her as any man has ever been of his wife." "Then why did she go?" asked Anna-Felicitas. "I don't think that's the sort of thing you should ask," rebuked Anna-Rose. "But if I don't ask I won't be told," said Ann Felicitas, "and I'm interested." "Mrs. Sack went because I was able--I was so constructed--that I could be fond of other people as well as of her," said Mr. Sack. "Well, _that's_ nothing unusual," said Anna-Felicitas. "No," said Anna-Rose, "I don't see anything in that." "I think it shows a humane and friendly spirit," said Anna-Felicitas. "Besides, it's enjoined in the Bible," said Anna-Rose. "I'm sure when we meet Mrs. Sack," said Anna-Felicitas very politely indeed, "much as we expect to like her we shall nevertheless continue to like other people as well. You, for instance. Will she mind that?" "It wasn't so much that I liked other people," said Mr. Sack, walking about and thinking tumultuously aloud rather than addressing anybody, "but that I liked other people so _much_." "I see," said Anna-Felicitas, nodding. "You overdid it. Like over-eating whipped cream. Only it wasn't you but Mrs. Sack who got the resulting ache." "And aren't I aching? Aren't I suffering?" "Yes, but you did the over-eating," said Anna-Felicitas. "The world," said the unhappy Mr. Sack, quickening his pace, "is so full of charming and delightful people. Is one to shut one's eyes to them?" "Of course not," said Anna-Felicitas. "One must love them." "Yes, yes," said Mr. Sack. "Exactly. That's what I did." "And though I wouldn't wish," said Anna-Felicitas, "to say anything against somebody who so very nearly was my hostess, yet really, you know, wasn't Mrs. Sack's attitude rather churlish?" Mr. Sack gazed at her. "Oh, aren't you a pretty--" he began again, with a kind of agonized enthusiasm; but he was again cut short by Anna-Rose, on whom facts of a disturbing nature were beginning to press.