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Rh own jewels, because she had once admired the ring on Constance's finger, where the stone seemed to throw out sparks of fire. . ..

"Tilly . . ."

She smiled at him now, made him come and sit beside her. Twenty-six years of age, a young husband and father, he looked quite ten years older, had aged more particularly, she thought, during the three years of his marriage. Now, however, that he had washed and changed, now that he no longer looked tired and wet, now that he was laughing under his fair moustache, now that his grey-blue eyes were filled with laughing kindness, now his aging no longer struck her so much; and she knew him again and he was hers again, in this one moment when her husband and she were alone. . ..

"Tell me," he said. "How have you been getting on . . . these five days?"

She felt a kindly affection for him; and she loved this in him. She let her hand remain in his two hands; she allowed him to kiss her and returned his kiss. And she answered lazily, with a movement of her shoulders:

"How have I been getting on? Oh, as usual! . . ."

"You mean, all right?"

"Yes, quite all right."

"I believe, Tilly . . ."

"What?"

"That you're telling a fib. Your voice is very abrupt."

She shrugged her shoulders and gave her little laugh, which meant that she couldn't help it.

"You ought to talk candidly to me for once," he said.

"Yes," she answered; and her tone was more intimate. "We don't do that too often."