"After. No, before. Perhaps just about then." Mrs. Nightingale decided that she would not tempt Providence any further. Self-discipline was good, but not carried to danger-point. "Now sit down and be quiet," she said. "We won't talk any more about unpleasant things. Only the worst of it is," she added, smiling, "that one's topics--yours and mine, I mean--are so limited by the conditions. I should ask any other man who had been about the world, as you _must_ have done, all sorts of questions about all sorts of places--where he had been, whom he had seen. You can't answer questions, though I hope you will some day...." She paused, and he saw the reason. "You see," said he, with a good-humoured laugh, "one gets back directly to the unpleasant subject, whether one will or no. But if I could remember all about my precious self, I might not court catechism about it...." "_I_ should not about mine." This was said in a low tone, with a silent look on the unraised eyes that was almost an invitation not to hear, and her lips hardly moved to say it, either. He missed it for the moment, but finished his speech with the thought in his mind. "Still, it's an ill-wind that blows nobody good. See what a clear conscience I have! But what was that _you_ said?" She dropped the fire-screen and raised her eyes--fine eyes they were, which we might have likened to those of Juno had the eyes of oxen been blue--turning them full on him. "When?" said she. "Just this minute. I ought to have apologized for interrupting you." "I said I should not court catechism about myself. I should not." Fenwick felt he could not assign this speech its proper place in the dialogue without thinking. He thought gravely, looking to all seeming into the fire for enlightenment; then turned round and spoke. "Surely that is true, in a sense, of all mankind--mankind and womankind. Nobody wants to be seen through. But one's past would need to be a very shaky one to make one wish for an oblivion like mine to extinguish it."