"Why should I? That's our affair."
"So it is," he assented. "Poor little girl! it's 'orrible rough on you, though; I wonder you aren't playing with straws. You didn't know what economy meant when we married."
Praise from him was nectar and ambrosia to her. She wanted to embrace him, but felt that if she embraced the opportunity to give a happy definition of "economy" it would be appreciated better. She perched herself on the arm of his chair, and struggled to evolve an epigram. As she could not think of one, she said:
"What nonsense!"
"I wish you had read the book, and liked it," said Kent, speaking spontaneously.
"Say you wish I'd read it?" replied his wife. "Oh, you'd like it, because it was mine. But I mean I wish——"
"What?"
"I don't know."
She twisted a piece of his hair round her finger.
"My taste is much maturer than it was," she averred, with satisfaction. "Somehow, I can't stand the sort of things that used to please me; I don't know how I was able to read them. They bore me now."