Page:The Finer Grain (London, Methuen & Co., 1910).djvu/70

58 "We've no imagination, you see," he quietly explained,—"whereas they have it on tap, for the sort of life they lead down there, all the while." He seemed wistfully to figure it out. "For us only one kind of irregularity is possible,—for them, no doubt, twenty kinds."

Poor Jane listened this time,—and so intently that after he had spoken she still rendered his obscure sense the tribute of a wait. "You think it's possible she's not living with him?"

"I think anything possible."

"Then, what in the world did she want?"

"She wanted, in the first place, to get away from us. We didn't like her—"

"Ah, we never let her see it!"—Jane could triumphantly make that point.

It but had for him, however, an effect of unconscious comedy. "No; that was it—and she wanted to get away from everything we did to prevent her; from our solemn precautions against her seeing it. We didn't understand her, or we should have understood how much she must have wanted to. We were afraid of her, in short, and she wanted not to see our contortions over it. Puddick isn't beautiful,—though he has a fine little head and a face with some awfully good marks; but he's a Greek god, for statuesque calm, compared with us. He isn't afraid of her."

Jane drew herself elegantly up. "I understood you just now that it's exactly what he is!"

Traffle reflected. "That's only for his having to