“But, surely, she must know your day pretty well by now,” suggested Robert, taking my hand affectionately. “You would think so,” said Tom, “but you see you are wrong, because there is just a shade of difference sometimes in what I do every day. For instance, when I go home to-night I shall have to tell her where we all sat this afternoon, and when you came out, and why.” (He tore his hair.) “And what the devil shall I say when she asks what we talked about? I get so giddy with it, you know, that I just keep the scene in my mind and give it her all faithfully. I dare not invent or I should contradict myself.” Robert apologised to me, and, of course, I said it was nothing; there was no pleasure like setting matters of opinion right. But I returned to Tom for confirmation of my theories of sex. “What about your father-in-law? He asks a good many questions, too, so far as I remember.” “Oh, that’s nothing,” said Tom, “his are quite harmless questions. I like telling him what he wants to know; it is generally quite interesting, about my job and things of that sort.” I turned to Robert and asked: “You never thought my husband wanting in nice feeling towards Anne did you?” “Oh dear, no,” he said, “of course not. One doesn’t expect a man to take much interest in a house.” There are two great rocks on which relationships by marriage often split. The first, which is also the chief source of danger to blood-relationships, is the presumption that because we are relations we must love one another; the second is the presumption that because we are relations-in-law we must loathe one another. The only safe line is to avoid any mention of the connection, even to oneself. If, in spite of this absence of prejudice, there is still great natural antipathy, it is possible to think of ourselves as fellow-guests at a boarding-house, obliged to meet pretty constantly at the same table. For the sake of the mistress of the house, who so rashly brought us together, we may as well try to find some redeeming interest in each other’s vices. I never suggested to Constance that we should learn to love one another. It was impossible for me to love anyone because she was Tom’s wife, I could only loathe her for it; so I shut my eyes tight and said the alphabet backwards to myself when the idea of our relationship came into my head. Instead, I thought--or tried to: “This is a person whom Tom has brought with him to the house. I expect she will stay a long time. She must enjoy her visit, and it is horrid to stay in a house where one is entertained. She shall have the best we can give her; we will try not to be rude or dull, and she shall do as she likes.” When she returned my hospitality, I tried to be a good guest and not leave my umbrella and sponge behind me when I went away, and I always remembered her birthday. So we got on all right. I behaved to Robert in the same way. If I allowed myself a little more freedom