ainthood was so accomplished, her union
with heaven so complete, that she could afford herself these profaner
sympathies. She was secretly indignant with Anne's view of Walter as
unpresentable in the circles of the spiritual _elite_.

"It never struck her that you mightn't need an introduction after all;
that you were in it as much as she. That's the sort of mistake one might
expect from--from a spiritual parvenu, but not from Anne."

"Oh, come, I don't consider myself her equal by a long chalk."

"Well, say she does belong to the peerage; you're a gentleman, and what
more can she require?"

"She can't see that I am (If I am. You say so). She considers
me--spiritually--a bounder of the worst sort."

"That's her mistake. Though I must say you sometimes lend yourself to it
with your horrible profanity."

"I can't help it, Edie. She's so funny with it. She _makes_ me profane."

"Dear Walter, if you can think Anne funny--"

"I do. I think she's furiously funny, and horribly pathetic. All the
time, you know, she thinks she's leading me upward. Profanity's my only
refuge from hypocrisy."

"Oh no, not your only refuge. You say she thinks she's leading you. Don't
_let_ her think it. Make her think you're leading her."

"Do you think," said Majendie, "she'd enjoy that quite so much?"

"She'd enjoy it more. If you took her the right way. The way I mean."

"What's that?"

"You must find out," said she. "I'm not going to tell you everything."

Majendie became thoughtful. "My only fear was that I couldn't keep it up.
But you really don't think, then, that I should score much if I did?"

"No, my dear, I don't. And as for keeping it up, you never could. And if
you did she'd never understand what you were doing it for. That's not the
way to show you're in love with her."

"But that's just what I don't want her to see. That's what she hates so
much in me. I've always understood that in these matters it's discreeter
not to show your hand too plainly. You see, it's just as if we'd never
been married, for all she cares. That's the trouble."

"There's something in that. If she's not in love with you--"

"Look here, Edie, you're a woman, and you know all about them. Do you
really, honestly think Anne ever was in love with me?"

"Oh, don't ask me. How should I know?"

"No, but," he persisted, "what do you think?"

"I think she _was_ in love."

"But not with me, though?"

"No, no, not with you."

"With whom, then?"