"investments." I wondered whether they had yet told Mrs.
Pethel of their intention to go on to Switzerland for some climbing.

Of his secretiveness for his wife's sake I had a touching little
instance after luncheon. We had adjourned to have coffee in front of the
hotel. The car was already in attendance, and Peggy had darted off to
make her daily inspection of it. Pethel had given me a cigar, and his wife
presently noticed that he himself was not smoking. He explained to her
that he thought he had smoked too much lately, and that he was going to
"knock it off" for a while. I would not have smiled if he had met my eye,
but his avoidance of it made me quite sure that he really had been
"thinking over" what I had said last night about nicotine and its possibly
deleterious action on the gambling thrill.

Mrs. Pethel saw the smile that I could not repress. I explained that I
was wishing _I_ could knock off tobacco, and envying her
husband's strength of character. She smiled, too, but wanly, with her
eyes on him.

"Nobody has so much strength of character as he has," she said.

"Nonsense!" he laughed. "I'm the weakest of men."

"Yes," she said quietly; "that's true, too, James."

Again he laughed, but he flushed. I saw that Mrs. Pethel also had
faintly flushed, and I became horribly aware of following suit. In the
sudden glow and silence created by Mrs. Pethel's paradox, I was grateful
to the daughter for bouncing back among us, and asking how soon we
should be ready to start.