It occurred to him that perhaps she was trying to be funny: he knew
that there is nothing more cryptic than the humor of the unhumorous.
"Is it a joke?" he faltered.
"Oh, I hope not. I want it so much to be a reality--"
He paused to smile at the limitations of a world in which jokes were
not realities, and continued gently: "But since it is one already--"
"To us, I mean: to you and me. I want--" her voice wavered, and her
eyes with it. "I have always wanted so dreadfully...it has been
such a disappointment...not to..."
"I see," said Lethbury slowly.
But he had not seen before. It seemed curious, now, that he had
never thought of her taking it in that way, had never surmised any
hidden depths beneath her outspread obviousness. He felt as though
he had touched a secret spring in her mind.
There was a moment's silence, moist and tremulous on her part,
awkward and slightly irritated on his.
"You've been lonely, I suppose?" he began. It was odd, having
suddenly to reckon with the stranger who gazed at him out of her
trivial eyes.
"At times," she said.
"I'm sorry."
"It was not your fault. A man has so many occupations; and women who
are clever--or very handsome--I suppose that's an occupation too.
Sometimes I've felt that when dinner was ordered I had nothing to do
till the next day."
"Oh," he groaned.
"It wasn't your fault," she insisted. "I never told you--but when I
chose that rose-bud paper for the front room upstairs, I always
thought--"
"Well--?"
"It would be such a pretty paper--for a baby--to wake up in.
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