"Do you think spontaneous criticisms are the most valuable?" he asked.
"Perhaps not; but they are very interesting. After all, experience may vitiate one's judgment as much as it matures it."
"What a very odd doctrine," laughed Jim. "But I don't suppose you really believe it yourself."
"Oh no, probably I don't," she replied, "but I don't know what I do believe, and what I don't. Will you give me my cloak? Do you want a lift? No? Good-night!"
When Eva got home she went straight up to her room, and her husband followed her and sat down on a chair opposite to her, as if waiting for her to speak. But Eva had quite as successful a power of silence as he, and sat saying nothing, till he found it unbearable and, in a fatal fit of fidgeting, went across to the mantelpiece, where Reggie's photograph was standing. Eva's eyes followed him slowly, with a still impatience.
He took up the photograph and looked at it for a moment.
"Ah! this is your young friend Reggie Davenport, is it not?"
Eva yawned slightly and nodded assent.
"I thought he was at the opera with you to-night?"