"I can hardly go so far as that. But that joke of your little pussycat about the sweethearts got mixed with the smell of the wind and the chrysanthemums and dahlias and sunflowers." He pressed his fingers hard on his eyes again. "Do you know, there's pain in it--worse than you'd think! The half-idea that comes is not painful in itself--rather the contrary--but it gives my brain a twist at the point at which I can recall no more. Yes, it's painful!" "But there _was_ a half-idea? Forgive me if it gives you pain, and don't try. Only I'm not sure you ought not to try when the chance comes, for your own sake." "Oh, I don't mind trying. This time it was something about a front garden and a girl and a dog-cart." He had not taken his hands from his eyes. Now he did so, brushing them on his hair and forehead as before. "I get no nearer," said he. "A front garden and a girl and a dog-cart," thus Miss Sally saucily, coming out with the letter. "Did you have a very touching parting, Mr. Fenwick? Now, mind you don't forget to post it. I wouldn't trust you!" He took the letter from her, but seemed too _distrait_ to notice her little piece of levity; then, still speaking as if in distress or pain, he said: "It must have been some front garden, long ago. This one brought it back--this and the leaves. Only there was nothing for the dog-cart." "And only mamma for the girl"--thus Sally the irrepressible. And then mamma laughed, but not Mr. Fenwick at all. Only Sally thought her mother's laugh came hard, and said to herself, now she should catch it for chaffing! However, she didn't catch it, although the abruptness with which her mother said good-night and went back into the house half confirmed her impression that she should. On the contrary, when she followed her a few minutes later, having accompanied Fenwick to near the road end, and scampered back to the house, turning to throw Parthian good-nights after him, she found her mother pale and thoughtful, and surely the lips and hands she used to kiss her with were cold. She wasn't even sure that wasn't a tear. Perhaps it was. For mamma had had a bad ten minutes--scarcely a _mauvais quart d'heure_--and even that short interim had given her time to see that this kind of thing would be incessant with her recovered husband, granting that she could recover him. Only of that she felt nearly secure--unaccountably, perhaps; certainly not warrantably. But how to bear this kind of thing through a life?--that was the question. What was this kind of thing, this bad ten minutes, that had made her tremble, and turn white, and glad to get away, and be alone a minute before Sally came up jubilant? But oh, how glad, for all that, to get at her daughter's lips to kiss!--only not too hard, so as to suggest reflection and analysis.