In answer she rang for Ellen and asked her to take the children out. “Take them for a walk before their naps, will you, since we’ll be out for dinner.” Ellen nodded and hurried them out, all smiles. It was a true holiday for Ellen, appealing to all her romantic sense. The quarrel was over; the husband had come home. They did not seek to leave the room. Dick wandered to the window and looked out at the children stumbling down the snowy path. Then he turned to Cecily, sitting so slim and erect in her breakfast place. “I suppose it was silly to come back,” he blundered. “Silly?” There she was, tripping him over a triviality again. “Well, perhaps not silly, but unwise.” “Why? Didn’t you want to?” “You know I wanted to. But we’ve settled nothing, dear.” “Why did you come?” asked Cecily. “I suppose I was called by the holiday,” answered Dick with simple truthfulness. “I came instinctively. I--couldn’t help it.” “But you feel just the same?” “The same as what?” “As you did when you went.” Dick seemed to search his memory. “Well, it never was very clear to me just what the issue was. If you mean that I feel terribly in the wrong now, terribly culpable for all those misunderstandings which broke us up, I don’t believe I do feel that. I still don’t know quite where I was wrong. I was stupid about things, little things, of course.” “But, Dick, don’t you feel that--that this life is the best? With me, with the children? Don’t you see that the things I wanted to avoid had to be avoided?” He scrutinized the dogmatism of her face carefully, painfully. It was such an exalted face. It seemed such a pity that he couldn’t put it at rest. All she wants, he thought, is a whale of an apology for sins I may not be conscious of, but which I may have committed. “Can’t we be happy together--as we were last night--after this?” He felt now that she was trying to pledge him. The fury of her ideals was pursuing him again. “Do you mean spend every night sitting on the davenport together?” He meant to lighten it, but as usual he failed. Her face showed her shrinking. “Don’t mock,” she said. Dick took a restless turn or two around the room and came back to stand over his wife. “Cecily, I was a fool to disturb you last night. I was worse. I was a robber. I robbed you of the peace that was beginning to come to you. I shan’t ask you to forgive me. It was because I couldn’t help it. But I won’t repeat it. I’ll not bother you again.” “Are you going away again?” “It’s better, I think. We aren’t closer--aren’t easy together--aren’t really happy. Isn’t it better that I go?” There was pleading in his voice, but she was too hurt to hear it; pain, but she was deaf to that, too. She could only see that he could go; that his going was an insult to her desire that he should stay. She got up, clutching the edge of the table. “Then, go--go quickly!”