Duer, always moved by her innate emotional force and charm, whatever other lack he had reason to bewail, gazed before him in startled sympathy, astonishment, pain, wonder, for he was seeing very clearly and keenly in these echoing sounds what the trouble was. She was feeling neglected, outclassed, unconsidered, helpless; and because it was more or less true it was frightening and wounding her. She was, for the first time no doubt, beginning to feel the tragedy of life, its uncertainty, its pathos and injury, as he so often had. Hitherto her home, her relatives and friends had more or less protected her from that, for she had come from a happy home, but now she was out and away from all that and had only him. Of course she had been neglected. He remembered that now. It was partly his fault, partly the fault of surrounding conditions. But what could he do about it? What say? People had conditions fixed for them in this world by their own ability. Perhaps he should not have married her at all, but how should he comfort her in this crisis? How say something that would ease her soul? “Why, Margie,” he said seriously, “you know that’s not true! You know you’re not dull. Your manners and your taste and your style are as good as those of anybody. Who has hinted that they aren’t? What has come over you? Who has been saying anything to you? Have I done anything? If so, I’m sorry!” He had a guilty consciousness of misrepresenting himself and his point of view even while saying this, but kindness, generosity, affection, her legal right to his affection, as he now thought, demanded it. “No! No!” she exclaimed brokenly and without ceasing her tears. “It isn’t you. It isn’t anybody. It’s me--just me! That’s what’s the matter with me. I’m dull; I’m not stylish; I’m not attractive. I don’t know anything about music or books or people or anything. I sit and listen, but I don’t know what to say. People talk to you--they hang on your words--but they haven’t anything to say to me. They can’t talk to me, and I can’t talk to them. It’s because I don’t know anything--because I haven’t anything to say! Oh dear! Oh dear!” and she beat her thin, artistic little hands on the shoulders of his coat.