"That's it," Dick interposed. "Her adventures have all been joyous."
"But they haven't," Leila insisted. "I'm no spoiled darling of the gods. I've been poor, poor as that girl out there. I've had heartaches, and disappointments, and misfortunes."
"Not vital ones," Dick declared. "You've never had a knock-out blow."
"She doesn't know what one is," Standish laughed, but there sounded a ruefulness in his laughter that told of the kind of blow he must once have suffered to bring that note in his voice. Standish Burton took life lightly, except where Leila was concerned. His manner now indicated, almost mysteriously, that something threatened his harbor of peace, but the regard Leila gave to him proved that the threat of impending danger had not come to her.
"Oh, but I do know," she persisted.
"Vicariously," I suggested. "All artists do."
"No, actually," she said.
"You're wrong," said Standish. "You're the sort of woman whom the world saves from its own cruelties."
There was something so essentially true in his appraisal of his wife that the certainty covered the banality of his statement and kept Dick and myself in agreement with him. Leila Burton, exquisitely remote from all things commonplace, was unquestionably a woman to be protected. Without envy—since my own way had its compensations in full measure—I admitted it.
"I think that you must have forgotten, if you ever knew," she said, "how I struggled here in London for the little recognition I have won."