“Well, haven’t you got a decent novel or anything?” said Clare, reading one of her letters. “A decent novel! There’s no such thing nowadays, and they give me the hump.” Clare was reading another letter with absorbed interest, but she listened with half an ear, as it were, to her husband. “Play mother a game of cribbage, then,” she said. “Look here, Clare,” said Herbert furiously, “I shall begin to throw things about in a minute.” “Don’t get hysterical, Herbert,” said Clare calmly. “Especially as I have got some good news for you.” As she spoke these words she looked across a Demonstration to him with a curious smile and added: “A big surprise, Herbert!” “A surprise?” said Herbert with sarcasm. “Have you discovered another widow in distress?” “Well, I have,” said Clare, “but it’s not that.” Mrs. Heywood glanced from her son to her daughter-in-law, and seemed to imagine that she might be disturbing an intimate conversation. “I will be back in a minute. I won’t disturb you two dears,” she said, as she left the room quietly. “You won’t disturb us, mother,” said Clare. But the old lady smiled and said, “I won’t be long.” “Are you going to get arrested again?” asked Herbert. “Do you want me to bail you out? Because by the Lord, I won’t!” “Oh, that was quite an accident,” said Clare, laughing. “Besides, I gave you my word to abstain from the militant movement, and you can’t say I have broken the pledge.” “You have broken a good many other things.” “What kind of things?” asked Clare. “You aren’t alluding to that window again, are you?” “You have broken my illusions on married life,” said Herbert, with tragic emphasis. “Ah,” said Clare, “that is ‘the Great Illusion,’ by the Angel in the House.” “You have broken my ideals of womanhood.” “They were false ideals, Herbert,” said Clare very quietly. “It was only a plaster ideal which broke. The real woman is of flesh and blood. The real woman is so much better than the sham. Don’t you think so?” “It depends on what you call sham,” said Herbert. “I was a sham until that plaster image of me broke. I indulged in sham sentiment, sham emotion, sham thoughts. Look at me now, since I went outside these four walls and faced the facts of life, and saw other people’s misery besides my own, and the happiness of people with so much more to bear than I had. Look into my eyes, Herbert.” She smiled at him tenderly, alluringly. “What’s the good?” said Herbert. “Do you see a weary soul looking out?” Herbert looked into his wife’s eyes for a moment and then stared down at the carpet. “I used to see love looking out,” he said.