“Caroline!” said she, smiling the correction at him.
“Is that your name?” He sat down by her again. “Why, it is the same as my wife’s.”
And Caroline said “Humph! You’re a strange man, but you are wise and good. Tell me, does she understand you?”
“What is there to understand? We are wed and we are faithful to each other, I can take my oath on that to God or man.”
“Yes, yes, but what is faith—without love between you? You see? You have long since broken your vows to love and cherish, understand that, you have broken them in half.”
She had picked up a stick and was drawing patterns of cubes and stars in the soil.
“But what is to be done, Caroline? Life is good, but there is good living and there is bad living, there is fire and there is water. It is strange what the Almighty permits to happen.”
A slow-speaking man; scrupulous of thought and speech he weighed each idea before its delivery as carefully as a tobacconist weighs an ounce of tobacco.
“Have some cake?” said Caroline, drawing a package from a pocket. “Will you have a piece ... John?”
She seemed to be on the point of laughing aloud at him. He took the fragment of cake but he did not eat it as she did. He held it between finger and thumb and stared at it.