It mustn't go; it's too precious. It means everything. You
mustn't _let_ it go!"

"But I told you it _had_ gone. It's too late."

"No!" Pixie shook her head. "I know better. There's time yet, if
you'll be warned. Last night, when you were comforting Jack after his
tumble, Geoffrey sat watching you as Dick watches Bridgie. It can't be
all gone, when he looks like that. He has loved you, been proud of you,
been patient with you for--how long is it you have been married? Seven
years, and you need a lot of patience, Esmeralda! I suppose it's come
to this--that you've used up all the patience he has."

It said volumes for Joan's penitence that she allowed such a statement
to pass unchallenged, and even assented to it with meekness.

"I suppose that's it. For the first few years it was all right. When I
got angry he only laughed; then he began to get impatient himself, and
this last year things have been going from bad to worse. When he spoke
straight out it was easier; there was a row royal, and a grand `make up'
at the end, but now he's so cold and calm." Esmeralda's lip trembled at
the remembrance of the scene downstairs of the averted figure writing
stolidly at the desk. She stared before her in silence for a dismal
moment, then added sharply: "And what in the world set him off at a
tangent this morning, of all others? There have been dozens of times
when I should have expected him to be furious, and he's been as mild as
a lamb; and then of a sudden, when I was all innocent and unsuspicious,
to flare up like that! There's no sense in it!"

"It's always the way with men. You can't reckon on them," announced
Pixie, with the seasoned air of one who has endured three husbands at
least. "Dick's the same--an angel of patience till just the moment when
you've made sure of him, and then in a moment he snaps off your head--my
head, I mean, never Bridgie's. There's too much--bloom." She put her
little head on one side and pursed her lips in thought, with the
characteristic Pixie air which carried Joan back to the days of
childhood. "Now, isn't it odd, Esmeralda, how people cultivate almost
every good quality, and leave love to chance? They practise patience
and unselfishness, but seem to think love is beyond control. It comes,
or--it goes. _Tant mieux_! _Tant pis_! My dear, if I married a
husband who loved me as Geoffrey loved you, it would be the big work of
my life to keep him at it, and I'd expect