their hulking personalities, bare of all the iridescence of potentiality,
which we could have cast about them. Something of this iridescence may
cling to unmarried lovers, in spite of themselves, but wedded bliss is a
sheer offence.

I do not know why it was not an offence in the case of the Alderlings,
unless it was because they both, in their different ways, saw the joke of
the thing. At any rate, I found that in their charm for each other they
had somehow not ceased to be amusing for me, and I waited confidently for
the answer she would make to his whimsically abrupt bidding. But she did
not answer very promptly, even when he had added, "Wanhope, here, is
scenting something psychological in the reason of my laughing at you,
instead of accepting the plain inference in the case."

"What is the plain inference?" I asked, partly to fill up Mrs.
Alderling's continued silence.

"When a man laughs at a woman for no apparent reason it is because he is
amused at her being afraid of him when he is so much more afraid of her,
or puzzled by him when she is such an incomparable riddle herself, or
caring for him when he knows he is not worth his salt."

"You don't expect to put me off with that sort of thing," I said.

"Well, then, go on Marion," Alderling repeated.




II.