"What ought marriage be?" he smiled, half humouring her, half concerned. For answer she looked keenly, almost wistfully, into his face. He had noticed this look more than once of late. "I don't know," she said softly, after awhile, with a little discouraged shrug of her shoulders. "I always thought that when a man and a woman liked each other--oh, thoroughly--liked the same things, had everything in common, that that was enough. And--for the woman I was a month ago, it would have been enough, Peter!" she added in a puzzled tone. "You've changed then, Mrs. Joyce?" "That's it," she agreed. "I'm not the same woman. I couldn't, as a girl, estimate what life was going to be as a wife." "Perhaps no girl can," he suggested, interested now. "Well, that's just what I'm thinking, Peter!" she smiled, a little ruefully. And again she gave him the look that was new, that was not all timid nor wistful nor appealing, yet somehow partook of all three. "You see, you feel that nothing can change you," she elucidated further, "and you are perfectly sure of yourself, from your old standpoint. And then the--well, the mental and spiritual and physical miracle of marriage DOES change you, and it is as if you had entered into a contract for a totally strange woman!" She was so intent, so bright and earnest, as she turned a fire-flushed face to his, that he felt an odd moisture pricking his eyes. "Alix," he said, affectionately, "where do I fail you?" For a moment she was silent, her bright eyes fixed on his. Gradually the serious look on her face lightened, and her customary smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. "I married you under a misapprehension," she said. "I thought you had about three hundred dollars a year! It appears that you have more than that every month--every week, for all I know--" "You knew my mother had that old Pacific Avenue place!" he answered with concern. "I never for one second deceived--" "Oh, you idiot!" Alix laughed. "I don't mind being rich at all, I like it. I don't want to live in the city, or join women's clubs, and all that, but I like having my own check-book--truly, I do! As for all the silver and portraits and rugs and things, why, we may like them some day." He was not listening to her; there was a sorry look in his eyes. "You know, Alix," he said, suddenly, "you've made life a different thing to me. I never had any woman near me before, and to hear your voice about the house, and your piano, and your laugh--why, it's wonderful to me. I've been alone here so many years, not knowing really how much of life I missed, and you've brought it all to me. Why, even to have Mrs. Florence at the post office ask me for 'Mrs. Joyce,' gives me a warm, happy sort of feeling! I--" he stroked the smooth hand under his own; there was real emotion in his voice, "I'd do a good deal to show you how grateful I am, old girl," he finished. "I wish you could tell me where I fail, and I'd move heaven and earth to please you!"