earty laugh she had heard from him for many
a long day. Laura, who had given him the letter in fear and
trembling and only because she could not help herself, was
exceedingly relieved and joined in merrily. But while she was
laughing she had to wink a sudden moisture from her eyelashes:
this glimpse of the natural self of the man she had married went
to her heart. "Is it true?" he said, still with that friendly
twinkle in his eyes. "Do I lead you the deuce of a life, poor
old Laura?"

"I don't mind," said Laura, smiling back at him. She could have
been more eloquent, but she dared not. Bernard's moods required
delicate handling.

"He's a cool hand anyhow to write like that to a woman about her
husband. But Lawrence always was a cool hand. I remember the
turn-up we had in the Farringay woods when I was twelve and he
was fourteen. He nearly murdered me. But I paid him out," said
Bernard in a glow of pleasurable reminiscence. "He was too
heavy for me. Old Andrew Hyde came and dragged him off. But
I marked him: he was banished from his mother's drawingroom for
a week--not that he minded that much . . . Aunt Helen was a
pretty woman. Gertrude and I never could think why she married
Uncle Andrew, but I believe they got on all right, though she was
a big handsome woman--a Clowes all over--while old Andrew
looked like any little scrub out of Houndsditch. Never can tell
why people marry each other, can you?" Bernard was becoming
philosophical. I suppose if you go to the bottom it's Nature
that takes them by the scruff of the neck and gives them a gentle
shove and says 'More babies, please.' She doesn't always bring it
off though, witness you and me, my love.-- But I say, Laura, I
like the way you handed over that letter! Thought it would do me
good, didn't you? Look here, I can't have my character taken
away behind my back! You tell him to come and judge for
himself."

"You'll get very tired of him, Berns," said Laura doubtfully.
"You always say you get sick of people in twenty-four hours: and
I can't take him entirely off your hands--you'll have to do your
share of entertaining him. He's your cousin, not mine, and it'll
be you he comes to see."

"I shan't see any more of him than I want to, my dear, on that
you may depend," said Bernard with easy emphasis. "If he
invites himself he'll have to put with what he can get. But
I can stand a good deal of him. Regimental shop is always
amusing, and Lawren