easily provoked. This evening, however, she replied rather sharply:

"Because I've got nothing amusing to say, I suppose."

Ralph thought for a moment, and then remarked:

"You work too hard. I don't mean your health," he added, as she
laughed scornfully, "I mean that you seem to me to be getting wrapped
up in your work."

"And is that a bad thing?" she asked, shading her eyes with her hand.

"I think it is," he returned abruptly.

"But only a week ago you were saying the opposite." Her tone was
defiant, but she became curiously depressed. Ralph did not perceive
it, and took this opportunity of lecturing her, and expressing his
latest views upon the proper conduct of life. She listened, but her
main impression was that he had been meeting some one who had
influenced him. He was telling her that she ought to read more, and to
see that there were other points of view as deserving of attention as
her own. Naturally, having last seen him as he left the office in
company with Katharine, she attributed the change to her; it was
likely that Katharine, on leaving the scene which she had so clearly
despised, had pronounced some such criticism, or suggested it by her
own attitude. But she knew that Ralph would never admit that he had
been influenced by anybody.

"You don't read enough, Mary," he was saying. "You ought to read more
poetry."