"How did you hear about her?" asked the Professor. "I didn't hear about her," answered Marigold. "If I had I mightn't have gone up to town. You think it right," he added, "to--to encourage such people?" "Who's encouraging her?" demanded the professor. "If fools didn't go about thinking they could improve every other fool but themselves, this sort of thing wouldn't happen. Arlington had an amiable, sweet-tempered wife, and instead of thanking God and keeping quiet about it, he worries her out of her life because she is not the managing woman. Well, now he's got the managing woman. I met him on Wednesday with a bump on his forehead as big as an egg. Says he fell over the mat. It can't be done. You can't have a person changed just as far as you want them changed and there stop. You let 'em alone or you change them altogether, and then they don't know themselves what they're going to turn out. A sensible man in your position would have been only too thankful for a wife who didn't poke her nose into his affairs, and with whom he could get away from his confounded politics. You've been hinting to her about once a month, I expect, what a tragedy it was that you hadn't married a woman with brains. Well, now she's found her brains and is using them. Why shouldn't she belong to the Fabian Society and the W.S.P.U? Shows independence of character. Best thing for you to do is to join them yourself. Then you'll be able to work together." "I'm sorry," said Marigold rising. "I didn't know you agreed with her." "Who said I agreed with her?" snapped the Professor. "I'm in a very awkward position." "I suppose," said Marigold--he was hesitating with the door in his hand--"it wouldn't be of any use my seeing her myself?" "I believe," said the Professor, "that she is fond of the neighbourhood of the Cross Stones towards sundown. You can choose for yourself, but if I were you I should think twice about it." "I was wondering," said Marigold, "whether, if I put it to her as a personal favour, she might not be willing to see Edith again and persuade her that she was only joking?" A light began to break upon the Professor. "What do you think has happened?" he asked. "Well," explained Marigold, "I take it that your young foreign friend has met my wife and talked politics to her, and that what has happened is the result. She must be a young person of extraordinary ability; but it would be only losing one convert, and I could make it up to her in--in other ways." He spoke with unconscious pathos. It rather touched the Professor. "It might mean," said the Professor--"that is, assuming that it can be done at all--Mrs. Marigold's returning to her former self entirely, taking no further interest in politics whatever." "I should be so very grateful," answered Marigold. The Professor had mislaid his spectacles, but thinks there was a tear in Marigold's eye.