"No matter! If he's only going to play it once a fortnight or so, and is going to tinker it up to suit himself without saying by-your-leave to you, I say we're occupying a false position, and that's what I mean by living a lie." Maxwell looked at her in that bewilderment which he was beginning to feel at the contradictions of her character. She sometimes told outright little fibs which astonished him; society fibs she did not mind at all; but when it came to people's erroneously inferring this or that from her actions, she had a yearning for the explicit truth that nothing else could appease. He, on the contrary, was indifferent to what people thought, if he had not openly misled them. Let them think this, or let them think that; it was altogether their affair, and he did not hold himself responsible; but he was ill at ease with any conventional lie on his conscience. He hated to have his wife say to people, as he sometimes overheard her saying, that he was out, when she knew he had run upstairs with his writing to escape them; she contended that it was no harm, since it deceived nobody. Now he said, "Aren't you rather unnecessarily complex?" "No, I'm not. And I shall tell papa as soon as I see him just how the case stands. Why, it would be dreadful if we let him believe it was all going well, and perhaps tell others that it was, and we knew all the time that it wasn't. He would hate that, and he wouldn't like us for letting him." "Hadn't you better give the thing a chance to go right? There hasn't been time yet." "No, dearest, I feel that since I've bragged so to papa, I ought to eat humble-pie before him as soon as possible." "Yes. Why should you make me eat it, too?" "I can't help that; I would if I could. But, unfortunately, we are one." "And you seem to be the one. Suppose I should ask you not to eat humble-pie before your father?" "Then, of course, I should do as you asked. But I hope you won't." Maxwell did not say anything, and she went on, tenderly, entreatingly, "And I hope you'll never allow me to deceive myself about anything you do. I should resent it a great deal more than if you had positively deceived me. Will you promise me, if anything sad or bad happens, that you don't want me to know because it will make me unhappy or disagreeable, you'll tell me at once?" "It won't be necessary. You'll find it out." "No, do be serious, dearest. _I_ am _very_ serious. Will you?" "What is the use of asking such a thing as that? It seems to me that I've invited you to a full share of the shame and sorrow that Godolphin has brought upon me." "Yes, you have," said Louise, thoughtfully. "And you may be sure that I appreciate it. Don't you like to have me share it?" "Well, I don't know. I might like to get at it first myself." "Ah, you didn't like my opening Godolphin's letter when it came!" "I shouldn't mind, now, if you would answer it." "I shall be only too glad to answer it, if you will let me answer it as it deserves."