Yet, perhaps, after all, their sentimental relations did undergo an imperceptible development, as subtle as that which led in the first place to their union. This union had its original promptings in a not unromantic chain of circumstances. Of vulgarity or sordidness it had nothing. Had Elodie been free it would never have entered Andrew's head not to marry her, and she would have married him offhand. Lackaday insists on our remembering this vital fact. Sincere affection drew them together. Then the first couple of years or so were devoted to mutual discoveries. There was no question on either part of erring after strange fancies. Elodie carried her air of propriety in the happy-go-lucky music-hall world almost to the point of the absurd. As for Andrew, he had ever shown himself the most lagging Lothario of his profession. Indeed, for a period during which she suffered an exaggeration of her own sentiments, she upbraided him for not being the perfect lover of her half-forgotten dreams.... "Why don't you love me any longer, André?" "But I love you, surely. That goes without saying." "Then why do you go on reading, reading all the time instead of telling me so?" She would be lying on a couch, dressed in her soiled wrapper and old bedroom slippers, occupied with nothing but boredom, while Andrew devoted himself to the unguided pursuit of knowledge, the precious pleasure of his life. He would put the book face downwards on his knee and pucker his brows. "_Mon Dieu, ma chérie_, what do you want me to say?" "That you love me." "I've just said it." "Say it again." "_Je l'aime bien. Voilà!_" "And that's all?" "Of course it's all. What remains to be said?" The honest fellow was mystified. He could not keep on repeating the formula for the two or three hours of their repose. It would be the monotonous reiteration of the idiot. And he could no more have knelt by her side and poured out his adoration in the terms, let us say, of Chastelard, than he could have lectured her on Hittite inscriptions. What did she want? She sighed. He cared for his old book much more than for her. "My dear," said he, "if you would only read a bit you would find it a great comfort and delight."