Fay smiled. "What a darling old ostrich it is!" she said, stroking my hand. "Does it like to keep its dear head in the sand, and go on pretending to itself that rocks are palm-trees and dry streams wells of water? Then it shall, if it likes. But all the same, my Reggie, it's rather stupid of you always to pretend that things are what you want them to be; because they aren't, and you'll have a tremendous waking up some fine morning." "I'm not pretending," I said stoutly. "Yes, you are. You are always pretending to yourself that Annabel is devoted to me, and she really isn't one little bit. Frank says she isn't, and if he can see it I'm sure you ought to, Reggie. There is no harm in her not admiring me: it would be very strange if she did, considering how much older she is and how different we are; and she really is awfully nice to me, considering everything. Frank admits that. But when you go on pretending that she spends her life in sighing like a furnace for me, and writing odes to my eyebrows--why, then, I get so impatient of it all that I find it difficult to see how nice she really is." "All that would be quite right, sweetheart, if I really were pretending. But I'm not. I know Annabel a jolly sight better than you do, and I know she is absolutely devoted to you." And at that I left it and made love to my wife instead, a much more agreeable occupation, in spite of that jealousy of Frank seething at the back of my mind. As I had said to Fay, I was absolutely convinced of Annabel's devotion to her. And what wonder in that? Who could live with my child-wife, as Annabel and I lived with her, and see all her charms of person and beauties of character without loving her with all one's heart? She was made for love, my brilliant, beautiful darling, and she had it showered upon her in full measure. But I was not equally sure of Fay's affection for Annabel. I knew all my sister's virtues--none better; but I could see they were not exactly the brand of virtues most calculated to appeal to the young. Annabel was prim and fussy and masterful; there was no denying it, and these characteristics--one could hardly call them faults--were just the qualities to blind the eyes of a girl to any corresponding virtues. Therefore I felt it was for me, who really knew and understood my sister, to show both her superior points and screen her inferior ones when they were alike exposed to the piercing gaze of youthful eyes. Though Fay's youthful eyes were kind enough, Frank's were quite the reverse, and I was becoming increasingly afraid of the influence of Frank's clear-sighted callousness upon my wife. To him I was--I must inevitably be--an old fogey; but I did not like the idea of his sharing that impression of my fogeydom with Fay. As Fay and I were sitting hand-in-hand upon the garden-seat that blissful June morning, a shadow fell upon the grass, and we saw Jeavons approaching us with a message from the house.