They all laughed; then Peter added, seriously:

"I'll go this far, Cherry. Lloyd married you too young."

"Oh, far too young!" she agreed, quickly. "The thing I--I can't
think of," she said, "is how young I was--only a little girl. I
knew nothing; I wasn't ready to be anybody's wife!"

Something in the poignant sorrow of her tone went straight to
their hearts, and for the first time Peter had an idea of the real
suffering she had borne. Alix's mouth was rather firmly shut, her
eyes a little narrowed, her face rather sad, as she looked into
the fire.

"If I had a child, even, or if Martin needed me," Cherry said,
"then it might be different! But I'm only a burden to him----"

"His letter doesn't sound as if he thought of you as a burden,"
Alix suggested, mildly.

"Ah, well, the minute I leave him he has a different tone," Cherry
explained, and Peter said, with a glance almost of surprise at his
wife:

"It's an awfully difficult position for a woman of any pride,
dear!"

Alix, kneeling to adjust the fire, as she was constantly tempted
to do, met his look, and laid a soot-streaked hand on his knee.