4

enchanted diner-out; he was all that, but he was more than
that. And when I met the two, a year or so after their
marriage, my first feeling was that it was a failure, and
my second that it need not have been if both had not re-
mained stupidly unconscious of some latent qualiy in
themselves and in each other.

I confess that the theory did not hold with regard to Rose. I reluctantly decided that her eyes had fooled me, and that she was capable of caring for was noise and expensive hilarity. Figuratively as well as literally, she had to have the band playing while she ate. And she seemed to take a perverse pleasure in not trying to see what I saw in her husband.

"You say he's so clever; and you're supposed to know. But look at his companions, my dear. Yes! Look at mine, you'll answer; but when did I ever set up to be clever?"

"That's the trouble," I used to fling back irritably. "For God's sake do pretend. Gradually it might become a habit, and you'd open your eyes to a good many things you're blind to now."

She opened them wide to fix her look straight on me as she answered gravely: "I'm not blind to the life Tom leads — as you seem to be. I know things enough, in all conscience!"

"You don't know the right ones, the ones that matter. It's not the life he leads that counts: it's the life he was meant to lead."

"With some other woman, then? But how about the