“I wonder if I ever was calm and peaceful, passing up the other exaggeration. Now I nag at myself. I don’t know when it began.” “Anything special on your mind, or just the accumulation of domestic duties?” “I hate it,” cried Cecily suddenly, with a passion quite unlike her. “I hate the way people are living. I can’t make it out--anything out. If the principle they taught me that marriage is an institution for the home, for the bringing up of children is right, then all this--this fun--is wrong. You can’t have what they call ‘fun’ and be a good woman. You can’t play at making love with all this dancing that is only embracing--with all this loose talk--and keep your feeling for your husband or wife clean. And if you don’t you’re stupid or a bore--out of date. I know what people think of me. Women have actually told me that I’m foolish to have three children; that I shouldn’t let my household submerge me; that Dick is bound to crave ‘fun’! He does like it; he’s happier when we are going out places all the time; he makes himself cheap with these silly women; he uses the words he used to me when he talks to _them_--oh, that seems trivial, doesn’t it?” “No, no, not trivial! Don’t talk any more, Cecily. You’ll regret it if you do. I’m going to drive on. I’m afraid, a little, that you are battering yourself against a real difficulty, against things which can’t be obviated. I want to think about it. See if I can’t explain some things to you later. But it’s hard to have to explain things when I am so sorry, Cecily, that I lose my philosophy.” “Don’t bother, Matthew. I guess perhaps I’m just tired and a little jealous.” “No. You are tired and a little jealous, too, but it’s deeper than that. You’ve been slipped into an age that doesn’t fit you and instead of making things better for you by hardening you young they preserved your quality to your own--no, not destruction. It mustn’t be that.” He didn’t say any more. Nor let her talk. “Hush. Now you are to rest. There’s nothing to worry about. Think of those nice healthy babies that ought to make you eternally grateful to your fate. Three of them to bring up. That gives you a reason to straighten out all these problems--so you can help them. But you can’t straighten them out by fretting.” “Or by bothering you.” Her face, against the dark fur collar of her cloak, and dimly visible in the night, was very beautiful as Matthew turned to her. “You couldn’t bother me. I care for you,” said Matthew with restraint and yet conviction. “I care for you more than any other single thing in life. And,” he went on quickly, warned by her little gasp, “there’s not the faintest disloyalty to Fliss or jealousy of Dick involved. It’s a different kind of feeling than any one else gives or could give you.” Cecily’s slim arms, outlined under her wrap as she clasped her hands in sudden fear, relaxed again. “You’re beautiful, Matthew.”