"It's an awfully difficult position for a woman of any pride, dear!"
Alix, kneeling to adjust the fire, as she was constantly tempted to do, met his look, and laid a soot-streaked hand on his knee.
"Pete, dearest, of course it is! But--" and Alix looked doubtfully from one to the other--"but divorce is a hateful thing!" she added, shaking her head, "it--it never seems to me justifiable!"
"Divorce is an institution," Peter said. "You may not like it any more than you like prisons or mad-houses; it has its uses."
"People get divorces every day!" Cherry added. "Isn't divorce better than living along in marriage--without love?"
"Oh, love!" Alix said, scornfully. "Love is just another name for passion and selfishness and laziness, half the time!"
"You can say that, because yours is one of the happy marriages," Cherry said. "It might be very different--if Peter weren't Peter!"
As she said his name she sent him her trusting smile, her blue eyes shone with affection, and the exquisite curve of her mouth deepened. Peter smiled back, and looked away in a little confusion.
"I can't imagine the circumstances under which I shouldn't love you and Peter!" Alix summarized it, triumphantly.
"And Martin?" Peter asked.