The authoress sighed.
"Only moderately well, Mr. Mallow," she said wearily. "I am at present employed in identifying the Etruscan lituus with the Pontifical crosier, and some of the accounts are so contradictory that it is not easy to reconcile them."
"How is Olive?" demanded Tui, irrelevantly. "Is she well and happy?"
"Is not that a superfluous question, under the circumstances?" replied Mallow, evasively.
Tui looked at him.
"Hardly, or I would not have asked it. On the contrary, her letters give me a different impression. I fear from them that she does not get on well with her husband."
"Tis difficult," observed Mrs. Purcell, who had returned to the tea-table, "for a newly-married pair to live in complete accord with one another. The effect of their respective trainings has to be taken into account, and only the influence of time, coupled with forbearance on either side, can adapt the idiosyncrasies of one to those of the other. Olive has been reared in our island home, Mr. Carson has not. Therefore it is not unlikely that they experience some difficulty in blending their respective dispositions into one harmonious whole."
"East is east, and west is west," said Mallow, "and two parallel straight lines cannot meet."
"Let us hope that, in this case, judicious yielding on the part of each of these young people will create an exception to the invariable truth of that axiom, Mr. Mallow. Can I give you a dish of tea?"
"Thank you, Mrs. Purcell. Ah, here comes our mutual friend."