In the end it was not the identity her soaring fancy had pictured--not the union her heart cried for, less even than the partnership which naked reason seemed to claim. She had not become his very self, as he was of her very self--nor part of him. She was to him--what? She sought a word, at least an idea, and smiled at one or two which her own bitterness offered to her. A toy? Of course not. A diversion? Much more than that. But still it was something accidental, something that he might not have had and would have done very well without; yet a something greatly valued, tended, caressed--yes, and even loved. A great acquisition perhaps expressed it--a very prized possession--a cherished treasure. Sometimes, after putting it as low as she could in chagrin, she put it as high as she could--by way of testing it. Put it how she would, the ultimate result worked out the same. She made much less difference to Grantley Imason than she had looked to make; she was much less of and in his life, much less of the essence, more of an accretion. She was outside his innermost self--a stranger to his closest fastnesses. Was that the nature of the tie or the nature of the man? She cried out against either conclusion; for either ruined the hopes on which she lived. Among them was one mighty hope. Were not both tie and man still incomplete, even as she, the woman, was in truth yet incomplete, yet short of her great function, undischarged of her high natural office? Was there not that in her now which should make all things complete and perfect? While that hope--nay, that conviction--remained she refused to admit that she was discontent. She waited, trying meanwhile to smother the discontent. Of course there was another side, and Grantley himself put it to Mrs. Raymore when, in her sisterly affection for him and her motherly interest in Sibylla, she had ventured on two or three questions which, on the smallest analysis, resolved themselves into hints. "In anything like a doubtful case," he complained humorously (for he was not taking the questions very seriously), "the man never gets fair play. He's not nearly so picturesque. And if he becomes picturesque, if he goes through fits hot and cold, and ups and downs, and all sorts of convulsions, as the woman does and does so effectively, he doesn't get any more sympathy, because it's not the ideal for the man--not our national idea, anyhow. You see the dilemma he's in? If he's not emotional he's not interesting; if he's emotional he's not manly. I'm speaking of a doubtful case all the time. Of course you may have your impeccable Still-Waters-Run-Deep sort of man--the part poor old Tom ought to have played. But then that is a part--a stage part, very seldom real. No; in a doubtful case the man's nowhere. Take it how you will, the woman is bound to win." "Which means that you don't want to complain or criticise, but if I will put impertinent questions----" "If you put me on my defence----" he amended, laughing.