He asseverated with fury that he was never jealous of me. If that was so, his outrageous behaviour to his own cousin, a rich and blameless widower in search of a wife, was inexplicable. And now, after twelve years, we had reached a point where we could only laugh. There was nothing else to be done. He was growing stout, and I was growing lean. If only middle-aged men could grow thin, and poor middle-aged women a little plump, life would be easier for them. But we reversed it. Aunt Pussy alone seemed untouched by time. Even Mark's optimistic eye could never detect any sign of "breaking up" about her. And throughout those dreary years we had one supreme consolation, and a very painful consolation it was. We loved each other. "It's damnable!" said Mark again. "Well, if I'm not to murder her, if you're going to thwart me in every little wish just as if we were married already, I don't see what there is to be done. I've inquired about a post obit." "Oh, Mark!" "It's no use saying 'Oh, Mark'! I tell you I've inquired about a post obit, and if you had a grain of affection for me you would have done the same yourself years ago. But it seems you can't raise money on a promise which may be broken. As I said before, there is no way out of it except by bloodshed. I shall have to murder her, and then you can marry me or not as you like. You will like, safe enough, if I am handy with the remains." The door opened, and Aunt Pussy hurried in. She was always in a hurry. We did not start away from each other, but remained stolidly seated side by side on the horsehair dining-room sofa with anger in our hearts against her. She had never given me a sitting-room. I always had to interview Mark in the dining-room with a plate of oranges on the sideboard, like a heroine in "The Quiver." Aunt Pussy was a small, dried-up woman of between fifty and sixty, with a furtive eye and a perpetually moving mouth, who looked as if she had been pinched out of shape by someone with a false sense of humour and no reverence. She was dressed in every shade of old black--rusty black, green black, brown black, spotted black, figured black, plain black. Mark got up slowly, and held out his hand. "How do you do, Mark?" she said nervously. "I will own I'm somewhat surprised to see you here," ignoring his hand, and taking some figs out of a string bag, and placing them on an empty plate (the one that ought to have had oranges in it) on the sideboard. "I have brought you some figs, Janet; you said you liked them. I thought it was agreed that until Mark had some reasonable prospect of being able to support a wife his visits here had better cease." "I never agreed," said Mark, "I was always for their continuing. I've been against a long engagement from the first."