On the way home, in the deserted winter dusk, Westall surprised his wife by a sudden boyish pressure of her arm. "Did I open their eyes a bit? Did I tell them what you wanted me to?" he asked gaily. Almost unconsciously, she let her arm slip from his. "What _I_ wanted--?" "Why, haven't you--all this time?" She caught the honest wonder of his tone. "I somehow fancied you'd rather blamed me for not talking more openly--before--You've made me feel, at times, that I was sacrificing principles to expediency." She paused a moment over her reply; then she asked quietly: "What made you decide not to--any longer?" She felt again the vibration of a faint surprise. "Why--the wish to please you!" he answered, almost too simply. "I wish you would not go on, then," she said abruptly. He stopped in his quick walk, and she felt his stare through the darkness. "Not go on--?" "Call a hansom, please. I'm tired," broke from her with a sudden rush of physical weariness. Instantly his solicitude enveloped her. The room had been infernally hot--and then that confounded cigarette smoke--he had noticed once or twice that she looked pale--she mustn't come to another Saturday. She felt herself yielding, as she always did, to the warm influence of his concern for her, the feminine in her leaning on the man in him with a conscious intensity of abandonment. He put her in the hansom, and her hand stole into his in the darkness. A tear or two rose, and she let them fall. It was so delicious to cry over imaginary troubles! That evening, after dinner, he surprised her by reverting to the subject of his talk. He combined a man's dislike of uncomfortable questions with an almost feminine skill in eluding them; and she knew that if he returned to the subject he must have some special reason for doing so. "You seem not to have cared for what I said this afternoon. Did I put the case badly?" "No--you put it very well." "Then what did you mean by saying that you would rather not have me go on with it?" She glanced at him nervously, her ignorance of his intention deepening her sense of helplessness. "I don't think I care to hear such things discussed in public." "I don't understand you," he exclaimed. Again the feeling that his surprise was genuine gave an air of obliquity to her own attitude. She was not sure that she understood herself. "Won't you explain?" he said with a tinge of impatience.