"I do." She stopped abruptly, then went on again more impetuously. "But the worst of it is, I believe it is true, what they said. I _am_ ignorant and silly. I hate going out to parties; I never feel at ease, I make foolish mistakes. Owen has been very kind, he has only laughed, but it must have been horrid for him to have such a foolish wife. At home, too ... it's quite true I haven't helped him. I've been out all day enjoying myself, and not bothering about his work. I did at first, and I made such stupid blunders that he used to have to do it all over again." "Well, that's nothing." He spoke lightly. "After all, you are not a literary expert like your husband, and you can't be expected to do his work." "No." She caught her white teeth fiercely in her lip. "But lots of women could have helped him. This one they spoke of--they said she was clever, accomplished, just the sort of wife for a man like Owen--not a stupid little dummy like me. And"--she paused, and every tinge of colour faded out of her face--"they said I was common--not a lady. Mr. Herrick, am I common? Am I--not a lady?" With her eyes on his face, eyes full of a desperate hurt, Herrick felt a wild, impotent desire to strangle the two mischief-makers who had changed this girl's joy into bitterness, had turned a child's enchanted castle into a structure of pasteboard; but when he spoke his tone was admirably light. "My dear child, now you are talking absolute nonsense. Common? Well, to me commonness consists in common behaviour, mean tempers, a nasty, spiteful attitude of mind, a discontent with one's surroundings, a petty jealousy of others--oh, I hate a common mind as much as anyone in the world--but to use the word in connection with you is merely an abuse of language and not to be treated seriously." She was half perplexed, half comforted. "But a lady, Mr. Herrick? Am I or am I not--a lady?" "Well," he said slowly, "that again depends on the use of the word. Mrs. Swastika, my excellent charwoman, is referred to by her friends as 'the lady who looks after that queer man in the bungalow'; and when my usual milkman was taken ill the other day, my modest pint of milk was brought by a pig-tailed girl who announced, 'I'm the young lady as takes round Mr. Piggott's milk when he's sick!' So that you see the term 'lady' is capable of wide interpretation." "But _am_ I?" Her wistful tone craved for reassurance and Herrick gave it promptly. "If by 'lady' you mean a woman who is fit to mix with any one in the land, yes," he said. "Of course you are." She gave him a wan little smile, and dried away a few tears with the aid of his handkerchief. "I don't know where mine is," she said, half-crying, half-laughing. "I must have dropped it somewhere."