"As a boy," I added, "my chief pastime was buying sixpenny watches and tearing their insides out to see how they worked ... but I never saw how they worked."
"Yes," she said, "and that's what you would do if you had a wife; you would tear her to bits just to see how she worked ... and you would never find out how she worked either."
"Perhaps I might," I said with a smile. "When I dissected watches I was inexperienced; nowadays I could take a watch to pieces and find out how it worked. Perhaps I might manage to put my wife together again, Margaret."
"There would be one or two wheels left over," she laughed.
"I should like her better without them," said I.
"Oh!" she cried impatiently, "why can't you be like other men? What's the use of looking into the inside of everything? Look at father; he never bothered about what mother was; he just thought her perfect and look how happy he is!"
"Ah!" I said teasingly, "I understand! You don't want a man to analyse you in case he discovers that you aren't perfect!"
She looked at me frankly.
"I wouldn't like to be thought perfect," she said slowly. "I sometimes think that mother would think far more of father if he saw some faults in her."
"I am quite puzzled," I said; "you grumble because I analyse people and now you grumble because your father doesn't. What do you mean, child?" But she shook her head helplessly.