Peter did a curious thing. He rose and took a book haphazard from his shelf, came back to his chair and opened the book. He did not read it, and he was not being rude, but this was an agitation beyond the reach of snuff. He tried to calm himself by resting his eyes on print. Anne was not practised in the ways of bookish men, but, by strange insight, understood that Peter had gone to a book much as she went to his grate, to be soothed by its familiarity, and her rejoicing at his words came to an abrupt end. His action brought home to her, more than his horror-struck tone, whose significance she almost missed in her joy at Ada’s practical solution, his loathing of divorce: and it seemed to her, quite suddenly, that what mattered most in all this business was that Peter should be happy about it. It mattered more than Sam and Ada, and even more than Effie, that Peter, who was, so to speak, an old and sleeping partner, should be satisfied by their solution. She did not care if this was to per vert the values: the remnant of Peter Struggles’ life was of more importance than the young lives of the active members of the firm. And because she had a practical mind, and believed that one is happy in soul only when one is first happy in body, she was already thinking past their present problem: she was considering how the slut in Peter’s kitchen could be replaced by her own housewifely self. She resolutely consigned that thought to the future, and returned to the question of to-day. Ada, wonderfully, wanted a divorce: but Anne required that Peter should be happy about it, and she perceived the incompatibility. She saw that juxtaposition could hardly be more crude. He was a priest, the priest who married them, and she wanted him to acquiesce contentedly in their divorce. “Wants a divorce, does she?” she said. “Well, there’s more than Ada to be thought of.” “There is, indeed,” said Peter, thinking of his church. “There’s you,” said Anne, thinking of him. “If she gets one, does she plant herself on you again?” He supposed so, unable to disguise his depression at the prospect. “Aye,” she rubbed it in, “you were well rid of Ada once. It’s not in human nature to want her back again.” She was thinking singly of his comfort. Peter, on his part, took her to imply that if he opposed a divorce it was for interested motives, that he could continue to be “well rid of Ada.” He saw with dismay that it was an interpretation which could reasonably be put on any opposition from him. He thought, in his humility, that it was a reasonable interpretation, whereas, Peter being Peter, it was a ludicrously unjust interpretation, and, of course, Anne did not make it. She had only stated as a fact that Ada at home prejudiced her father’s comfort: and the comfort of Ada’s father had become a matter which touched Anne Bran-stone nearly.