Hubert looked at her, wondering why she possessed this curious gift of annoying him. Did she try, or was she really meaning to be kind? Her face, set and hard already, gave no hint. She smiled with her lips but her eyes did not light up. There was something tragic in her looks. She was not ugly, yet she meant absolutely nothing. She was just a passable statue, into which the artist had failed somehow to put any life. She smiled doggedly with her lips, and she clearly was not happy. She had never lived. She went on wanly smiling reassurance at him, as one who should say, "I am not to be considered," till he schooled his voice to answer. Whatever happened, he would not have another scene on this night which seemed in some way big with a decision. "It'll be nice to have a little chat, old girl," he said genially. "Sit down and make yourself comfy." She moved timidly towards an armchair with the mien of a scolded, nervous child. "If you're quite, quite sure?" she quavered. "I wish I felt certain you hadn't been just thinking you would settle down, now Mr. Boyd had gone. I should be absolutely happy with my Patience." "Boyd was in great form," Hubert answered. He could not trust himself to assure her further. "What did he say then?" and she let herself down into the chair staidly. She was not like a woman of thirty-eight. Women of thirty-eight nowadays are young, almost unfashionably young, and Ruth was pathetically old. She had given her youth to her mother: she was prepared to lavish the rest of life upon her brother, asking in return nothing except that he would not be what she tearfully and often called unkind to her. "Say?" answered Hubert, far more comfortably. "What didn't he say? My dear Ruth, I've had a classic homily on Marriage!" Ruth stiffened visibly. "Marriage? Then I suppose you asked him in to give you his advice?" "Really," said Hubert in another voice, "I imagine you can't object, now, to what I ask my pals in for?--supposing that I did." She smoothed all that kind of thing away with a restful gesture. "My dear boy, you know I've no objection, as you call it, to anything at all you do. You are a man. I'm only your guest. I've no right to object. But I am naturally interested. Of course, though, if you'd rather not tell me what Mr. Boyd said"--she paused, "we'll talk of something else." "No we won't," cried Hubert, with a sudden passion. "I'm sick to death of all this constant friction." "Friction!" and she raised her eyebrows ever so slightly. Otherwise her sad face remained expressionless, but her hands clasped each other tensely under an old-fashioned shawl.