‘Don’t say that, Edward!’ she cried quickly; ‘that was all very well in the old days, which you say were nonsense. I was only a girl then, but now I am middle-aged and not to be put off in that way. I am not a little enthusiast, I am an anxious woman. You should not put me off with phrases of the past.’ ‘You are always a girl, Carry, if you should live to be a thousand,’ he said with a faint laugh. ‘If you were so middle-aged as you say, you would be content with results as we have them. Here we are, we two, together with all the happiness we once so eagerly looked forward to, and which seemed for a time hopeless--very well off, thanks to you. Able to surround ourselves with everything that is delightful and pleasant, besides the central fact of being together, able to help our poor neighbours in a practical way: thanks to you again. Not so much as a crumple in our bed of roses--not a thorn. My dear, that is what you would think of, if you were middle-aged as you say.’ ‘Then let me be a silly girl, as in the old times,’ she cried, ‘though it was all nonsense, nothing but nonsense, as you say.’ ‘Softly, softly,’ he said, taking her hand again, ‘let us discriminate, Carry. Love can never be nonsense which has lasted like ours. My love, you must not blaspheme.’ ‘Love!’ she cried. Carry’s whole frame was trembling, her heart beating to her feet, to her fingers, in her throat. She seemed to herself only to be a slim sheath, the merest covering for that convulsive heart. There was something like--could it be scorn in the inflection of her voice. He took her by both hands now, throwing down the cigarette which had betokened the entire ease of his mind, and drew her towards him. Something like alarm had come into his tone, and something like indignation too. ‘Carry,’ he said, holding her hands fast, ‘Carry, what do you mean? Not that my love was nonsense, which never wavered from you, notwithstanding everything--not that you distrust me?’