r last words.
There, he told himself, was the whole difference between them. He was
intellectually infinitely more agile (he did not put it higher than
that) than she. She could not get away from things as he could. They
remained in her mind and rankled there. To get impatient with her, to
proceed from impatience to loss of temper, was flatly as cruel as to
permit impatience and anger with one bedridden and therefore unable to
join in robust exercises. He thought, "I'll not do it."

She said, actually repeating her last words, "Yes, if you ask me, it's
because you don't think they're good enough for you. As it happens,
there're all sorts of particularly nice men up there, only you never
take the trouble to know them. And clever--the only thing you pretend to
judge by; though what you can find clever in Mr. Fargus or those Perches
goodness only knows. There're all sorts of Societies and Circles and
Meetings up there that I should have thought were just what would have
attracted you. But, no. You prefer that pottering Mr. Fargus with his
childish riddles and even that young Perch without spirit enough to go
half a yard without that everlasting old mother of his--"

It was longer and fiercer than he had expected. He intercepted. "I say,
Mabel, what's the point of all this, exactly?"

"The point is that it makes it rather hard for me, the way you go on.
I've made many, many friends up at the Garden Home. Do you suppose it
doesn't seem funny to them that my husband is never to be seen, never
comes near the place, never meets their husbands? Of course they must
think it funny. I know I feel it very awkward."

He thought, "Girding! Sneering! Can't I get out of this?" Then he
thought, "Dash it, man, it's only just her way. What is there in it?" He
said, "Yes, but look here, Mabel, we started at my riding home in the
dark--or rather at old Low Jinks's muffin knee. Let's work out the
trouble about that."

"That's what I'm talking about. I think it's extraordinary of you to go
riding by yourself all through the winter just to avoid people I'd like
you to be friendly with. I ask you not to and you call it 'fugging up in
railway carriages with them.' That was the elegant expression you used."

"Elegant." That was the word Nona had said she was going to have for her
own.

He sat up in his chair. He was glad he had kept his mind detached all
through this business. He was going to make an effort.

He said, "Well, listen, Mabel