But she did not complain. She was even, secretly, a little glad, for she had always enjoyed being alone. There were so many books to be read, letters to be written, thoughts to be thought in which Archie, for all his loyal efforts, could not quite share; and there was her music. One of her step-mother's several wedding presents had been a small grand piano, as companionable to Joan in this "pasture-time" as a dog is to some women. Archibald, too, loved music. He frequently urged her to play and sing, and was as proud of her rather indifferent performances as a _maestro_ of a star-pupil. But he had an innocent, disconcerting habit of patting time with his foot, or bursting into the air at unexpected moments in a large, booming tenor that never by any accident quite found the key. Music was one of the things Joan found herself unable to share with her husband. She objected sometimes to his growing preoccupation with business, on his own account. He began to look a little thin and fine-drawn; the typical American husband, she told him reprovingly. "You're neglecting your exercise, Archie dear! You never go to the Y. M. C. A., or play around with the boys any more." "Got something better to do," he beamed at her. "Goose! But it isn't good for a man never to have any fun at all. 'All work and no play'--" He took her in his arms. "Fun! What do I want with fun?" he exclaimed quite fiercely, lifting her face to his. But before their lips met, he let her go. "No rough stuff," she heard him admonish himself under his breath. He kissed her hand instead.... The Darcys too, were spending rather a quiet summer. Now that they had no débutante daughter in prospect, their names figured leas prominently in the social column. With his growing avoirdupois, the Major appeared to be abandoning the one-step in favor of the easy-chair, which was to be found in greater perfection at home than at the Country Club. If his bride regretted this lapse into settledness, she showed no signs of it. Her avoirdupois, also, was getting rather out of hand, despite constant attention to massage and sporadic attempts at dieting. "It ain't how _much_ I eat, seems like--it's _what_ I eat," she said once plaintively to Joan. "Everything tasty turns to flesh on me; and God knows, I hate a poor table!"