threw into relief the strong profile of the man across from me,
as he stared at the fire.

"I am afraid I am not very interesting," I said at last, when he
showed no sign of breaking the silence. "The--the illness of the
butler and--Miss Caruthers' arrival, have been upsetting."

He suddenly roused with a start from a brown reverie.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "I--oh, of course not! I was
wondering if I--if you were offended at what I said earlier in
the evening; the--Brushwood Boy, you know, and all that."

"Offended?" I repeated, puzzled.

"You see, I have been living out of the world so long, and never
seeing any women but Indian squaws"--so there were no Spanish
girls!--"that I'm afraid I say what comes into my mind without
circumlocution. And then--I did not know you were married."

"No, oh, no," I said hastily. "But, of course, the more a woman
is married--I mean, you can not say too many nice things to
married women. They--need them, you know."

I had floundered miserably, with his eyes on me, and I half
expected him to be shocked, or to say that married women should
be satisfied with the nice things their husbands say to them. But
he merely remarked apropos of nothing, or following a line of
thought he had not voiced, that it was trite but true that a good
many men owed their success in life to their wives.