"She's restless," continued Christopher; "won't have her laugh out—stops in the middle, as if she suddenly remembered she was in church or somewhere. How d'you account for it?"
"She's grown a bit more strenuous since her engagement—more alive to the working-day side of things."
"Not lasting, I hope?"
"Please God, yes. She won't be any less happy."
"Of course Myles Stapledon's responsible. Yet how has he done it? You say you're glad to see Honor more serious-minded. Well, that means you would have made her so before now, if you could. You failed to change her in all these years; he has succeeded in clouding her life somehow within the space of two months. How can you explain that?"
"You're asking pithy questions, my son. And, by the voice of you, I'm inclined to reckon you're as likely to know the answers to them as I am. Maybe more likely. You're a man in love, and that quickens the wits of even the dullest clod who ever sat sighing on a gate, eating his turnip and finding it tasteless. I loved a maid once, too; but 'tis so far off."
"Well, there's something not wholly right in this. And they ought to know it."
"Certainly they don't—don't guess it or dream it. But leave that. Now you. You must tackle yourself. The remedy lies with you. This thing has made you think, at any rate."
"Well, yes. Honor isn't so satisfied with me as of old, somehow. Of course that's natural, but——"
"She loves you a thousand times better than you love yourself."