effect I intended up to a certain point. She even smiled a little,
as much as a woman could be expected to smile who was not originally
in the joke.

"And they had got to comparing weird experiences?" she asked.

"Yes; the staleness of the thing almost made me sick. Do you
remember when we first compared our weird experiences? But I
suppose they will go on doing it to the end of time, and it will
have as great a charm for the last man and woman as it had for Adam
and Eve when they compared THEIR weird experiences."

"And was that what you were laughing at?"

"We were laughing at the wonderful case of telepathy I put up on
them."

Mrs. March faced her open book down on the table before her, and
looked at me with profound solemnity. "Well, then, I can tell you,
my dear, it is no laughing matter. If they have got to the weird it
is very serious; and her talking to him about her family, and his
wanting to know about her father, that's serious too--far more
serious than either of them can understand. I don't like it, Basil;
we have got a terrible affair on our hands."

"Terrible?"

"Yes, terrible. As long as he was interested in her simply from a
literary point of view, though I didn't like that either, I could
put up with it; but now that he's got to telling her about himself,