not seem reasonable, it does not seem right. Why should you base your
conclusion as to that life upon a promise and a menace which may not
really refer to it in the sense which they seem to have?"

"Isn't it all there is?" she asked, and Alderling burst into his laugh.

"I'm afraid she's got you there, Wanhope. When it comes to polemics
there's nothing like the passive obstruction of Mrs. Alderling. Marion
might never have been an early Christian herself--I think she's an
inexpugnable pagan--but she would have gone round making it awfully
uncomfortable for the other unbelievers."

"You know," she said to him, and I never could decide how much she was in
earnest, "that I can't believe till you do. I couldn't take the risk of
keeping on without you."

Alderling followed her in-doors, where she now went to put the book away,
with the mock addressed to me, "Did you ever know such a stubborn woman?"




IV.


One conclusion from my observation of the Alderlings during the week I
spent with them was that it is bad for a husband and wife to be
constantly and unreservedly together, not because they grow tired of each
other, but because they grow more intensely interested in each other.
Children, when they come, serve the purpose of separating the parents;