It seemed to him to give out the splendor and vitality of her, to have a secret sympathy with the thought that stirred beneath it.
She had a trick, when she was thinking of caressing it, of winding and unwinding the little curls that sprang, aureolewise, above her temples. That was one of her ways, and it brought her hands and arms into play with stupendous effect.
He would sit opposite her a whole evening, watching it, dumb with excess of happiness.
It took him six months to find out that the trick he admired so much was a sign that his wife was bored to extinction.
"Is there anything you want?" he said.
She laughed hysterically.
"You've only to say what you want, and I'll get it for you, if it can be got."
"It could be got all right," said she. "But I doubt whether you'd care very much to get it."
"What is it? Tell me—tell me."
"Well—you're very nice, my dear, I know. But before I married you I used—though you mightn't think it—to be received in society."