“So you say, but when they ask me what you are doing, as they all did in London this time, and I reply that you can't get a job, there is generally a polite little silence. No one believes it. I don't believe it.” “Philippa!” Sir Henry turned in his chair. His cigar was burning now idly between his fingers. His heavy eyebrows were drawn together. “Well, I don't,” she reiterated. “You can be angry, if you will--in fact I think I should prefer you to be angry. You take no pains at the Admiralty. You just go there and come away again, once a year or something like that. Why, if I were you, I wouldn't leave the place until they'd found me something--indoors or outdoors, what does it matter so long as your hand is on the wheel and you are doing your little for your country? But you--what do you care? You went to town to get a job--and you come back with new mackerel spinners! You are off fishing to-morrow morning with Jimmy Dumble. Somewhere up in the North Sea, to-day and to-morrow and the next day, men are giving their lives for their country. What do you care? You will sit there smoking your pipe and catching dabs!” “Do you know you are almost offensive, Philippa?” her husband said quietly. “I want to be,” she retorted. “I should like you to feel that I am. In any case, this will probably be the last conversation I shall hold with you on the subject.” “Well, thank God for that, anyway!” he observed, strolling to the chimneypiece and selecting a pipe from a rack. “I think you've said about enough.” “I haven't finished,” she told him ominously. “Then for heaven's sake get on with it and let's have it over,” he begged. “Oh, you're impossible!” Philippa exclaimed bitterly. “Listen. I give you one chance more. Tell me the truth? Is there anything in your health of which I do not know? Is there any possible explanation of your extraordinary behaviour which, for some reason or other, you have kept to yourself? Give me your whole confidence.” Sir Henry, for a moment, was serious enough. He stood looking down at her a little wistfully. “My dear,” he told her, “I have nothing to say except this. You are my very precious wife. I have loved you and trusted you since the day of our marriage. I am content to go on loving and trusting you, even though things should come under my notice which I do not understand. Can't you accept me the same way?” Philippa, momentarily uneasy, was nevertheless rebellious. “Accept you the same way? How can I! There is nothing in my life to compare in any way with the tragedy of your--” She paused, as though unwilling to finish the sentence. He waited patiently, however, for her to proceed. “Of my what?” Philippa compromised. “Lethargy,” she pronounced triumphantly. “An excellent word,” he murmured. “It is too mild a one, but you are my husband,” she remarked. “That reminds me,” he said quietly. “You are my wife.”