"Well, as I say, old man, I always rather liked his wife. I--always--rather--liked--her. But somehow, as we went on through lunch, and then on after that, I didn't like her quite so much. Not--quite--so--much. I don't know. Have you ever seen a woman unpicking a bit of sewing? Always looks rather angry with it, I suppose because it's got to be unpicked. They sort of flip the threads out, as much as to say, '_Come_ out of it, drat you. _That's_ you, drat you.' Well, that was the way she spoke to old Sabre. Sort of snipped off the end of what he was saying and left it hanging, if you follow me. That was the way she spoke to him when she did speak to him. But for the most part they hardly spoke to one another at all. I talked to her, or I talked to him, but the conversation never got triangular. Whenever it threatened to, _snip!_ she'd have his corner off and leave him floating. Tell you what it was, old man, I jolly soon saw that the reason old Sabre was so jolly anxious for me to stay to lunch was because meals without dear old me or some other chatty intellectual were about as much like a feast of reason and a flow of soul as a vinegar bottle and a lukewarm potato on a cold plate. Similarly with the exuberance of his greeting of me. I hate to confess it, but it wasn't so much splendid old me he had been so delighted to see as any old body to whom he could unloose his tongue without having the end of his nose snipped off. "Mind you, I don't mean that he was cowed and afraid to open his mouth in his wife's presence. Nothing a bit like that. What I got out of it was that he was starved, intellectually starved, mentally starved, starved of the good old milk of human kindness--_that's_ what I mean. Everything he put up he threw down, not because she wanted to snub him, but because she either couldn't or wouldn't take the faintest interest in anything that interested him. Course, she may have had jolly good reason. I daresay she had. Still, there it was, and it seemed rather rotten to me. I didn't like it. Damn it, the chap only had one decent leg under the table and an uncommonly tired-looking face above it, and I felt rather sorry for him." III "After lunch I said, 'Well, now, old man, what about going up to this room of yours and having a look at this monumental history?' Saw him shoot a glance in his wife's direction, and he said, 'Oh, no, not now, Hapgood. Never mind now.' And his wife said, 'Mark, what _can_ there be for Mr. Hapgood to see up there? It's too ridiculous. I'm sure he doesn't want to be looking at lesson books.' "I said, 'Oh, but I'd like to. In fact, I insist. None of your backing out at the last minute, Sabre. I know your little games.' "Sort of carried it off like that, d'you see; knowing perfectly well the old chap was keen on going up, and seeing perfectly clearly that for some extraordinary reason his wife stopped him going up.