"To you!--you unappreciative male! I've everything in life to make a woman proud and glad and happy; and I want the world to know it. I long to parade my happiness, as a manikin parades the fashions, to the admiration and the envy of all beholders. Why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I dance, boy? I love dancing. I'd love to dance with you." "I can't dance," he answered. "I don't do any of these things." "I'll teach you," she volunteered. "It's altogether simple. You've no idea how simple it is, nor how lovely, till you try." He smiled involuntarily. "At my time of life! Imagine it! I wonder what you'll ask me to do next?" "Well, you need not dance," she urged. "You can go to the card room." "I don't care about cards," he answered obstinately and with a note of hard decision in his voice. "And I don't like the idea of your dancing with other men. Can't you give up these things--for me?" His objection surprised and vexed her. It was to her absurd that he should feel jealous, even slightly jealous, at the thought of her dancing with any one else. She felt hurt. Surely he had sufficient evidence of her love to trust her? She would have trusted him in any circumstances in her confident assurance of his love for her. She did not understand the temper of his love. It was not mistrust of her that moved him to object: it was dislike of the thought of any other man touching her, holding her in his arms even in the legitimate exercise of dancing. His passion had more than a touch of the primitive male in its quality. He wanted her to himself, shut away from the world, content to be alone with him always. And that was not in the least Esme's view of things: her outlook was entirely modern and wholly free from self-consciousness. She saw no reason why she should not enjoy herself in the same way in which other women enjoyed life. She wanted to cure Paul of his misanthropy, not to cultivate it herself. It was not an engaging quality; it was even a little ridiculous. "I would give up anything for you, Paul, if there was a good reason for the sacrifice," she said. "But I think you are merely prejudiced. You've spent so much time alone that you've grown used to solitude; but it isn't good for you. It isn't good for any one. We can't live like that--shunning people as if we had something to hide. I want to go out, and I want to invite people here--not very often, but occasionally. Dear, be sensible. You gave up your solitude when you married me. I can't let you slip back again." He moved restlessly and disengaged his arm from hers and stood looking across the garden into space and frowning heavily. She watched him with anxious eyes. After more than a year of married life this was the first cloud to gather in their radiant sky. "You can go where you please," he said ungraciously. "I never supposed you cared so much for these things." "I can't go without you," she insisted. The frown on his brow deepened.