"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "I believe I've been to sleep!" but he didn't apologize. He began instead to tell her some things that might interest her, about what Drummond, his best man, and he, had done in Manchuria, just as if nothing had happened; but naturally Estelle wouldn't be interested. She was first polite, then bored, then captious. Winn looked at her rather hard. "Are you trying to pay me back for falling asleep?" he asked with a queer little laugh. "Is that what you're up to?" Estelle stiffened. "Certainly not," she said. "I simply wasn't very interested. I don't think I like Chinese stories, and Manchuria is just the same, of course." Winn leaned over her, with a wicked light in his eyes, like a naughty school boy. "Own up!" he said, laying his rough hand very gently on her shoulder. "Own up, old lady!" But has anybody ever owned up when they were being spiteful? Estelle didn't. She looked at Winn's hand till he withdrew it, and then she remarked that she was feeling faint from want of food. After she had had seven chicken sandwiches, pate de foie gras, half a melon, and some champagne, she began to be agreeable. Winn was delighted at this change in her and quite inclined to think that their little "breeze" had been entirely due to his own awkwardness. Still, he wished she had owned up. CHAPTER V It took Winn a month to realize that he had paid his money, had his shy, and knocked down an empty cocoanut. He couldn't get his money back, and he must spend the rest of his life carrying the cocoanut about with him. It never occurred to him to shirk the institution of marriage. The church, the law, and the army stood in his mind for good, indelible things. Estelle was his wife as much as his handkerchief was his handkerchief. This meant that they were to be faithful to each other, go out to dinner together, and that he was to pay her bills. He knew the great thing in any tight corner was never under any circumstances to let go. All the dangers he had ever been in, had yielded, only because he hadn't. It was true he had not been married before, but the same rule no doubt held good of marriage. If he held on to it, something more bearable would come of it. Then one could be out of the house a good deal, and there was the regiment. He began to see his way through marriage as a man sees his way through a gap in an awkward fence. The unfortunate part of it was that he couldn't get through the gap unless Estelle shared his insight. He would have liked to put it to her, but he didn't know how; he never had had a great gift of expression, and something had brought him up very short in his communications with his wife.