"Pretty much," she answered passively, with entire acquiescence in the
fact if it were the fact, or the joke if it were the joke.

"But I didn't see anything of yours, Mrs. Alderling," I said. She
had had her talent, as a girl, and some people preferred it to her
husband's,--but there was no effect of it anywhere in the house.

"The housekeeping is enough," she answered, with her tranquil smile.

There was nothing in her smile that was leading, and I did not push my
inquiry, especially as Alderling did not seem disposed to assist. "Well,"
I said, "I suppose you will forgive to science my feeling that your
situation is most suggestive."

"Oh, don't mind _us!_" said Alderling.

"I won't, thank you," I answered. "Why, it's equal to being cast away
together on an uninhabited island."

"Quite," he assented.

"There can't," I went on, "be a corner of your minds that you haven't
mutually explored. You must know each other," I cast about for the word,
and added abruptly, "by heart."

"I don't suppose he meant anything pretty?" said Alderling, with a look
up over his shoulder at his wife; and then he said to me, "We do; and
there are some very curious things I could tell you, if Marion would ever
let me get in a word."