She had a quickness of imagery. It constantly delighted him. “Yes, that’s good,” she declared. “Up like a diver, Harry. Not with goggles and a helmet and all that, but shot up like a flash, all shining and glistening and triumphant with the jewel aloft. What a shout there’d be! Dear Harry! You’re splendid!” He smiled most lovingly. “As a matter of fact, I feel I ought to make a mess of it. It’ll be the first big case since we’ve been together that, while it’s been on, we haven’t had talks about. You couldn’t, of course, with this so near to you. It would be significant, and proper, if I drowned in it.” She shook her head. “Absurd! Why, the thing I’m most glad about, Harry, is that all this”--she indicated with a gesture her pose, her dress, her condition--“that all this hasn’t in the least upset your work. It might have. It hasn’t--and when it happens, it won’t, will it?” Harry said, “I’m rather ashamed to say it hasn’t, in the least. I’ve thought of you, often, but I’ve simply put the thought away. And when it happens, I shall think of you--terribly--going through it; and of the small thing--But we shall be in the crisis of the case and I shall have to forget you. I’ll have to, Rosalie, as I have had to. The work must go on.” She agreed emphatically. “Of course it must.” She then said, “Whereas mine--” He did not attend her. The “inward” look was deep upon his face. There was the suggestion of a grimmish smile about his mouth. One could have guessed that he was rehearsing, with satisfaction, his enormous application while the work was going on. She gave a sound of laughter, and that aroused him. “What’s the joke?” “Why, just how this does rather illuminate the point--” “The point...?” “Your work and mine--a man’s and a woman’s.” “Yes, tell me, dear.” “Why, Harry, I do think of it sometimes. We’ve planned it and arranged it and settled it so nicely, these years, and you see the big thing in marriage comes along and shatters it to bits. Your work goes on precisely as if nothing at all were happening; mine has to stand by.” “Ah, but this,” Harry said, and in his turn indicated her condition. “This--this is different. We agreed, before Huggo, that if we had children it need make no difference to you, to your work, in a way. And it hasn’t, and needn’t now--when it’s over. But this time, this period, why, that’s bound to interfere.” “But it doesn’t interfere with you. It shows the difference.” “Oh, it shows the difference,” he assented. His tone was conspicuously careless, conceding the difference but attaching to it no importance at all; and with it he rose--she had instantly the impression of him as it were brushing the difference like a crumb from his lap--and announced, “I’m going to my study now for a couple of hours before dinner. I must. Our solicitor’s coming in.” He bent over her and kissed her lovingly. “You understand, I know.” And he went.