pooh-pooh everything intellectual, he has a really penetrating mind."

I had a sudden vision of Dick in his old smoking jacket, standing in
the midst of the immaculate cottage that was once a barn, holding his
pipe with one finger crooked around the stem just in front of his nose
in the way he had, and smiling across at me.

"Have you deserted the cottage entirely?"

"Oh, we may possibly go back in the spring-----" She paused and looked
into the fire, her fine, strong face a little sad in composure, full of
thought.

"I am trying to be honest with myself David. Honest above everything
else. That's fundamental. It seems to me I have wanted most of all to
learn how to live my life more freely and finely.... I thought I was
getting myself free of things when, as a matter of fact, I was devoting
more time to them than ever before-and, besides that, making life more
or less uncomfortable for Dick and the children. So I've taken my
courage squarely in my hands and come back here into this blessed old
home, this blessed, ugly, stuffy old home--I've learned _that_ lesson."

At this, she glanced up at me with that rare smile which sometimes
shines out of her very nature: the smile that is herself.

"I found," she said, "that when I had finished the work of becoming
simple--there was nothing else left to do."

I laughed outright, for I couldn't help it, and she joined me. How we do
like people who can laugh at themselves.