"Oh, you wicked story," said Berry. "Why, I fairly spread myself on the brutality of his mouth." "You said he was honest, sober, and hard-working." "Nonsense," said Berry. "I was talking of somebody else. I have seen him sober, of course, but---- Besides, you were so precipitate. You had an answer for everything. When I spoke of his ears, you said you'd get used to them: and when I asked you if you'd noticed----" "I shan't," said Adèle. "I mean, I didn't. However, it's done now. And, after all, he's very convenient. If we hadn't got married, I shouldn't have wintered at Pau. And if I hadn't wintered at Pau, I shouldn't have met Piers." "True," said Berry, "true. There's something in that." He nodded in my direction. "D'you find he snores much?" "Nothing to speak of," said Adèle. "Used he to?" "Like the devil," said Berry. "The vibration was fearful. We had to have his room underpinned." "Oh, he's quite all right now," said my wife. "Indeed, as husbands go, he's--he's very charming." "You don't mean to say you still love him?" "I--I believe I do." "Oh, the girl's ill," said Berry. "Put your head between your knees, dear, and think of a bullock trying to pass through a turnstile. And why 'as husbands go'? As a distinguished consort, I must protest against that irreverent expression." "Listen," said Adèle, laughing. "All women adore ceremonious attention--even Americans. The ceremonious attentions of the man they love are the sweetest of all. It's the tragedy of every happy marriage that, when comradeship comes in at the door, ceremony flies out of the window. Now, my husband's my king. Once he was my courtier. I wouldn't go back for twenty million worlds, but--I've got a smile for the old days." "I know," said Berry softly. "I know. Years ago Daphne told me the same. And I tried and tried.... But it wouldn't work somehow. She was very sweet about it, and very wise. 'Ceremony,' she said, 'gets as far as the finger-tips.' I vowed I'd carry it further, but she only smiled.... We retired there and then, ceremoniously enough, to dress for dinner. I'd bathed and changed and got as far as my collar, when the stud fell down my back. I pinched it between my shoulder-blades. At that moment she came to the door to see if I was ready...." He spread out expressive hands. "They talk about the step from the sublime to the ridiculous. We didn't use any stairs; we went down in the lift. After that I gave up trying. A sense of humour, however, has pulled us through, and now we revile one another."