“I don’t know. He has to make believe to. With a face like that he wouldn’t be accepted in any other part.”
“Ah! what fun it is to watch people!” she murmured.
Wilfred smiled at her with quick warmth. But the suggestion of gratitude in his smile troubled Frances Mary. The roomful ceased to interest her. “You are thinking,” she said, crumbling a bit of cake, “that it is the only thing we can really share.”
Wilfred’s expanding petals were slightly frost-bitten. Why would she insist on dragging his secret thoughts out into the light? He hid the damage as well as he could. “Not the only thing,” he said. “And anyhow, it’s a lot!”
She remained pensive. “We tease each other so!” she murmured.
“What of it?” he said; “do we not also. . . .”
“Oh, don’t start on compensation,” she said. “I must have my absolutes!”
“You’re a little mixed,” said Wilfred. . . . “You’re welcome to them. . . . Look here, people with such sensitive feelers as we have are bound to find marriage full of little wounds. I think we do pretty well, considering. The only settled grievance I have against you is that you worry every little difficulty like a cat with a mouse. The mice are not important.” Thrusting his feet out, he embraced hers between them unseen. This he knew was more potent with Frances Mary than yards of argument. “Can you imagine us not married to each other? Or childless?”
She looked at him deeply and shook her head.
“Well, then, what the hell . . . !”