“And you never,” I ventured, making my jocosity as ironical as possible, “wear upon each other?”
“Horribly!” said Alderling, and his wife smiled contentedly, behind him. “We haven’t a whole set of china in the house, from exchanging it across the table, and I haven’t made a study of Marion--you must have noticed how many Marions there were that she hasn’t thrown at my head. Especially the Madonnas. She likes to throw the Madonnas at me.”
I ventured still farther, addressing myself to Mrs. Alderling. “Does he keep it up all the time--this blague?”
“Pretty much,” she answered passively, with entire acquiescence in the fact if it were the fact, or the joke if it were the joke.
“But I didn’t see anything of yours, Mrs. Alderling,” I said. She had had her talent, as a girl, and some people preferred it to her husband’s,--but there was no effect of it anywhere in the house.
“The housekeeping is enough,” she answered, with her tranquil smile.
There was nothing in her smile that was leading, and I did not push my inquiry, especially as Alderling did not seem disposed to assist. “Well,” I said, “I suppose you will forgive to science my feeling that your situation is most suggestive.”
“Oh, don’t mind _us!_” said Alderling.
“I won’t, thank you,” I answered. “Why, it’s equal to being cast away together on an uninhabited island.”
“Quite,” he assented.