"No," Larry admitted generously; "I have always said you were too good for me,—too fine."
"And so, still being a good wife, I have decided to take myself back." She drew her small body together, clasping her arms about the review. "My body and my soul,—what is personally most mine. But I will serve you—make you comfortable. And after a time you won't mind, and you will see that it was best."
"It goes deeper than that," her husband protested, groping for the idea that he caught imperfectly; "it means practically that we are living under the same roof but aren't married!"
"With perfect respectability, Larry, which is more than is always the case when a man and a woman live under the same roof, either married or unmarried! … I am afraid that is it in plain words. But I will do my best to make it tolerable for you."
"Perhaps some day you'll find a man,—what then?"
Margaret looked at him for a long minute before replying.
"And if I should find a Man, God alone knows what would happen!"
Then in reply to the frightened look on her husband's face, she added lightly:—
"Don't worry, Larry! No immediate scandal. I haven't any one in view, and living as I do it isn't likely that I shall be tempted by some knightly or idiotic man, who wants to run away with a middle-aged woman and three children. I am anchored safely—at any rate as long as dad lives and your mother, and the children need my good name. Oh!" she broke off suddenly; "don't let us talk any more about it!" …
Leaning her head on her hands, she looked into the fire, and murmured to herself as if she had forgotten Larry's presence:—