of converting her really sharp protest into an insincere joke. "I'm
afraid I'm not very literary. And I'm not artistic," she stated.

"I'm very sure you're not ignorant, not stupid," I ventured to reply,
with the accompaniment of feeling immediately afterwards that I had
been both familiar and patronising. My only consolation was in the
sense that she had begun it, had fairly dragged me into it. She had
thrust forward her limitations.

"Well, whatever I am I'm very different from my husband. If you like
him you won't like me. You needn't say anything. Your liking me
isn't in the least necessary!"

"Don't defy me!" I could but honourably make answer.

She looked as if she hadn't heard me, which was the best thing she
could do; and we sat some time without further speech. Mrs. Ambient
had evidently the enviable English quality of being able to be mute
without unrest. But at last she spoke--she asked me if there seemed
many people in town. I gave her what satisfaction I could on this
point, and we talked a little of London and of some of its
characteristics at that time of the year. At the end of this I came
back irrepressibly to Mark.

"Doesn't he like to be there now? I suppose he doesn't find the
proper quiet for his work. I should think his things had been
written for the most part in a very still place. They suggest a
great stillness following on a kind of tumult. Don't you think so?"
I laboured on. "I suppose London's a tremendous place to collect
impressions, but a refuge like this, in the country, must be better