bobbing of his head. She shot a meaning look in his direction.

"You seem happy, don't you?"

He stopped whistling instantly and assumed his more normal look
of set sternness. This was the man she knew and she preferred him
that way, rather than buoyant because of some other woman, even
though that other was as lovable and innocent of any deliberate
mischief as her niece. Not that she was jealous so much as she
was hurt. When a woman has fortified herself, after years of the
existence to which Mrs. Wade had submitted, with the final
conviction that undoubtedly her husband's is a nature that cannot
be other than it is, and then learns there are emotional
potentialities not yet plumbed, not to mention a capacity for
pleasant comradeship of which he has never vouchsafed her an
inkling, she finds herself being ground between the millstones of
an aching admission of her own deficiencies and a tattered, but
rebellious, pride.

Martin, when her remark concerning his apparent happiness had
registered, let his answer be a sober inspection of the garment
he had just removed.

"I don't suppose you can talk to me now after such a strenuous
evening," she went on more emphatically. And as he maintained his
silence, she continued with: "Oh, don't think I'm blind, Martin
Wade. I know exactly how far this has gone and I know how far it
can go."

"What are you driving at?"