They all laughed; then Peter added, seriously: "I'll go this far, Cherry. Lloyd married you too young." "Oh, far too young!" she agreed, quickly. "The thing I--I can't think of," she said, "is how young I was--only a little girl. I knew nothing; I wasn't ready to be anybody's wife!" Something in the poignant sorrow of her tone went straight to their hearts, and for the first time Peter had an idea of the real suffering she had borne. Alix's mouth was rather firmly shut, her eyes a little narrowed, her face rather sad, as she looked into the fire. "If I had a child, even, or if Martin needed me," Cherry said, "then it might be different! But I'm only a burden to him----" "His letter doesn't sound as if he thought of you as a burden," Alix suggested, mildly. "Ah, well, the minute I leave him he has a different tone," Cherry explained, and Peter said, with a glance almost of surprise at his wife: "It's an awfully difficult position for a woman of any pride, dear!" Alix, kneeling to adjust the fire, as she was constantly tempted to do, met his look, and laid a soot-streaked hand on his knee. "Pete, dearest, of course it is! But--" and Alix looked doubtfully from one to the other--"but divorce is a hateful thing!" she added, shaking her head, "it--it never seems to me justifiable!" "Divorce is an institution," Peter said. "You may not like it any more than you like prisons or mad-houses; it has its uses." "People get divorces every day!" Cherry added. "Isn't divorce better than living along in marriage--without love?" "Oh, love!" Alix said, scornfully. "Love is just another name for passion and selfishness and laziness, half the time!" "You can say that, because yours is one of the happy marriages," Cherry said. "It might be very different--if Peter weren't Peter!" As she said his name she sent him her trusting smile, her blue eyes shone with affection, and the exquisite curve of her mouth deepened. Peter smiled back, and looked away in a little confusion. "I can't imagine the circumstances under which I shouldn't love you and Peter!" Alix summarized it, triumphantly. "And Martin?" Peter asked. "Ah, well, I didn't marry Martin!" his wife reminded him quickly. "I didn't promise to love and honour Martin in sickness and health, for richer for poorer, for better for worse--by George!" Alix interrupted herself, in her boyish way, "those are terrific words, you know. And a promise is a promise!" "And even for infidelity, you don't believe people ought to separate?" Cherry asked. "Nonsense!" Peter said. "But you said--that Martin never--" "No, I'm not speaking of Martin now!" "Well, wouldn't that come under 'worser'?" Alix asked. "But, my child," Peter expostulated kindly, "my dear benighted wife--there is such a thing as a soul--a mind--a personality! To be tied to a--well, to a coarsening influence day after day is living death! It is worse than any bodily discomfort--"