He smiled at her with the tenderest appreciation. Oh, if any man looked at me like that, I would work my fingers to the bone to help him. Honestly and truly, he believed that she was bracing herself to the fray out of the purest, most disinterested motives. Never for one moment did it occur to him that a grown woman could hanker after such ploys for her own amusement. There is much in his unconsciousness which is beautiful, but--there is danger, too! Surely, surely when two people live together in such a terribly close relationship as husband and wife, before all things it must be necessary to understand! "Then I leave it to you, dearest," he said. "Arrange as you think best. And now, if Miss Wastneys will excuse me, I must say good-bye. Poor Mrs Evans is worse this afternoon. They fear that an operation may be necessary. She has had terrible pain." Mrs Merrivale threw out her hand impulsively. I was amazed to see that she had grown quite white. "Don't, Jacky--don't! You know _I_ can't bear it. _Why_ will you speak of such things when I have begged you not?" "I'm sorry, darling. I forgot. My mind was so engrossed." He laid his hand on her shoulder as he passed, and said to me, in an apologetic voice, "This poor child is so sensitive. The pain of the world wounds her tender heart. I am inconsiderate in bringing my burdens to her." The door shut behind him, and we stared at one another for a long tense moment. I _knew_, and she knew that I knew, and suddenly the long strain of pretending to be what she was not reached the snapping point, and she spoke out in a burst of impotent irritation:-- "It's not true! I'm _not_ tender-hearted. They don't wound me at all, all these sordid miserable details; they just irritate and disgust and asphyxiate. Oh, I'm so tired of it all--so _tired_--and he doesn't see, doesn't understand! He puts me on a pedestal, and burns incense at my feet, and believes that I am as interested as himself, and all the time--all the time I am smothered with boredom and impatience. I don't know why I am saying all this to you. Yes, I do. I saw in your eyes that you saw through me, and knew what I really felt. Now I suppose you are horribly shocked?" "Not a bit. I don't understand enough to judge you one way or another; but I wish, as you have begun, you would tell me a little more. I'm young myself, you see, so I should probably understand. Lots of people tell me their secrets, and I'm always sorry, and very rarely shocked. We all have our own faults. Why should we be so very hard on other people because theirs are a different brand from our own?" She stared at me with her big blue eyes. "What are your faults?" "Well," I laughed, "the list would take a long time! Shall we leave it for another day? What I want to know now is, why, with your temperament, did you come to marry a country parson?"