Other things, too, she learnt. When possible, she would suppress a bad review or lose the paper until evening. Unluckily, he had them all sent by an agency and she did not often succeed. She always said, however, that nobody went by that paper.... She never praised a writer who was younger and more famous than himself. She was conveniently blind if envelopes arrived addressed in his own writing. She always saw that his room was left properly untidy--all except the flowers, which must never show the slightest sign of age. She came to avoid the word "reliable" and after six months never once split an infinitive at meals. Hubert at such moments would throw down his knife with a grimace of pain. He said it was a physical sensation, like cut corks, and spoilt his appetite, which she could never understand. And sometimes if it happened early in the day, she found at night that she had spoilt his work as well.... Such was the routine of Hubert Brett, ex-bachelor at thirty-five and writer of repute; all sacred and to be taken as an earnest matter--even that half-hour wherein he Kept In Touch With Modern Movements. Helena learnt this, too, early. There had been great excitement in the suburb after lunch. An aeroplane had passed upon its way to Hendon, and passed very low. The noise had been colossal, like six motorcycles. Every one, used as the place was to aeroplanes, had dashed out to the garden--every one but Hubert. Helena, even in her disappointment, could admire his self-restraint. He seemed quite ignorant about it, too, when she made jokes upon the noise, as they set out for their tramp on the Heath. "What time about?" he said. "Before lunch?" "Why, Hugh," she laughed. "You must have heard! It sounded like a motor having its teeth drilled." "No," he said. "I shouldn't have missed that. It is a sound I've never struck!" She thought a moment. "Why, I know," she said. "You wouldn't have heard. Of course it was just after two and you were still keeping in touch with the movements." To her surprise he stopped short, and looking up, she saw his cheeks were flushed below the eyes. "My dear girl," he said pompously. "I enjoy your humourous way of looking at life, but it's a quite impossible position if a wife's going to be funny at the expense of her husband's ideals." With which he strode onward and she fell in, a model wife, behind. But she, of her simplicity, had meant it. She had always admired his powers of concentration on those dull old literary weeklies. She had not even thought of sleep. Every wife, perhaps, should be able to see through her husband the exact distance that he sees himself. CHAPTER VI GROWTH