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 I’m inclined to think there’s more in it than that. There’s something temperamental. I think you're a trifle cold, and I suspect I’m a trifle self-absorbed. If that were so it goes a long way to explaining our odd lack of illusion about each other. I’m not saying that the most satisfactory marriages aren’t founded upon this sort of understanding. But certainly it struck me as odd this morning, when Wilson told me, how little upset I felt. By the way, you're sure we haven’t committed ourselves to that house?”

“I’ve kept the letters, and I'll go through them to-morrow; but I’m certain we’re on the safe side.”

“Thanks. As to the psychological problem,” he continued, as if the question interested him in a detached way, “there’s no doubt, I think, that either of us is capable of feeling what, for reasons of simplicity, I call romance for a third person—at least, I’ve little doubt in my own case.”

It was, perhaps, the first time in all her knowledge of him that Katharine had known William enter thus deliberately and without sign of emotion upon a statement of his own feelings. He was wont to discourage such intimate discussions by a little laugh or turn of the conversation, as much as to say that men, or men of the world, find such topics a little silly, or in doubtful taste. His obvious wish to explain something puzzled her, interested her, and neutralized the wound to her vanity. For some reason, too, she felt more at ease with him than usual; or her ease was more the ease of equality—she could not stop to think of that at the moment though. His remarks interested her too much for the light that they threw upon certain problems of her own.

“What is this romance?” she mused.

“Ah, that’s the question. I’ve never come across a definition that satisfied me, though there are some very good ones”—he glanced in the direction of his books.