'I have observed,' replied Madame Frabelle, putting her hand in the sock that she was knitting, and looking at it critically, her head on one side, 'I have observed that Bruce is not at all well.' 'Oh, I'm sorry you think that. It's true he has seemed rather what he calls off colour lately.' 'He suffers,' said Madame Frabelle, as if announcing a great discovery,' he suffers from Nerves.' 'I know he does, my dear. Who should know it better than I do? But--do you think he is worse lately?' 'I do. He is terribly depressed. He says things to me sometimes that--well, that really quite alarm me.' 'I'm sorry. But you mustn't take Bruce too seriously, you know that.' 'Indeed I don't take him too seriously! And I've done my best either to change the subject or to make him see the silver lining to every cloud,' Madame Frabelle answered solemnly, with a shake of her head. 'I think what Bruce complains of is the want of a silver lining to his purse,' Edith said. 'You are jesting, Edith dear.' 'No, I'm not. He worries about money.' 'But only incidentally,' said Madame Frabelle. 'Bruce is really worried about the war.' 'Naturally. But surely--I suppose we all are.' 'But Mr. Ottley takes it particularly to heart,' said Madame Frabelle, with a kind of touching dignity. Edith looked at her in a little surprise. Why did she suddenly call Bruce 'your husband' or 'Mr. Ottley'? 'Why this distant manner, Eglantine?' said Edith, half laughing. 'I thought you always called him Bruce.' 'I beg your pardon; yes, I forgot. Well, don't you see, Edith dear, that what we might call his depression, his melancholy point of view, is--is growing worse and worse?' Edith got up, walked to the other end of the room, rearranged some violets in a copper vase and came back to the sofa again. Madame Frabelle followed her with her eyes. Then Edith said, picking up the knitting: 'Take care, dear, you're losing your wool. Yes; perhaps he is worse. He might be better if he occupied his mind more.' 'He works at the Foreign Office from ten till four every day,' said Madame Frabelle in a tone of defence; 'he looks in at his club, where they talk over the news of the war, and then he comes home and we discuss it again.... Really, Edith, I scarcely see how much more he could do!' 'Oh, my dear, but don't you see all the time he doesn't do anything?--anything about the war, I mean. Now both you and I do our little best to help, in one way or another. You especially, I'm sure, do a tremendous lot; but what does Bruce do? Nothing, except talk.' 'That's just it, Edith. I doubt if your husband is in a fit state of health to strain his mind by any more work than he does already. He's not strong, dear; remember that.' 'Of course, I know; if he were all right he wouldn't be here,' said Edith.' I suppose he really does suffer a great deal.' 'What was it again that prevented him joining?' asked Madame Frabelle, with sympathetic tenderness.