She rose, and put on her things, Kent assisting her. The stock-jobber took leave of him with a scowl; and when the last "good-night" had been exchanged, Cynthia and the unfortunate author stood on the hearth vis-à-vis. The girl was relieved that her parents were gone. The atmosphere had been electric and made her nervous of what might happen next. She had been looking forward, besides, to consoling him when the door closed--to his lying in her arms under her kisses, while she smoothed away his mortification. She could enter into his mood to-night better than she had entered into any of his moods yet, and she ached with sorrow for him. To turn to his wife on any matters connected with his work, however, never entered his head any more; so when she murmured deprecatingly, "Papa didn't mean anything by what he said, darling; you mustn't be vexed with him," all he replied was, "Oh, he hasn't made an enemy for life, my dear! If you're going up to your room now, I think I'll take a stroll." She said, "Do, and--and cheer up!" But her heart sank miserably. He dropped a kiss on her cheek with a response as feeble as her own, and went out. A woman may have little comprehension of her husband's work, and yet feel the tenderest sympathies for the disappointments that it brings him, but of this platitude the novelist had shown himself ignorant. Cynthia did not go up to her room at once. She sat down by the dying fire and wondered. She wondered--in the hour in which she had come mentally nearest to him--if, after all, Humphrey and she were united so closely as she had supposed. CHAPTER XII She loved him. When they married, perhaps neither had literally loved the other, but the girl had roused much stronger feelings in the man than the man had wakened in the girl. To-day the position was reversed; and her perception that he did not find her so companionable as she had dreamed was the beginning of a struggle to render herself a companion to him. If she had been a woman of keener intuitions, she must have perceived it long ago, but her intuitions were not keen. She was not so dull as he thought her, nor was she so dull as when she married, but a woman of the most rapid intelligence she would never be. Her heart was greater than her mind--much greater; her heart entitled her to a devotion that she was far from receiving. To her mind marriage had made a trifling difference; her sensibilities it had developed enormously. Her husband overlooked her sensibilities, and chafed at her mind. Fortunately for her peace, her tardy perception of their relations did not embrace quite so much as that.