More than ever she sought to associate herself with his work.  He was forced to recognize her personality there.  For when skilfully she led the talk on his plans, she hunted down elusive problems, grappled with them, and offered him the solutions of a sure instinct.  She did not reckon with his vanity.  She was too eager to make up for a lost opportunity, as she too often explained.  He came gradually to brood over what he now consented to consider a sacrifice.  In passing moments of irritation he even referred to it.  He broke out occasionally in fits of nerves, certain that he would be humoured and petted back to the normal.  He knew well how a frown dismayed her, how deep a word could strike, what tiny wounds he could inflict.  It would seem sometimes as if one or the other deliberately created a short, violent scene over a trivial difference just to relieve routine.  The domestic low-lands stretched beyond the eye.  He missed the broken country, the unexpected dips and curves of the unknown.  Not that his heart went adventuring.  He was faithful in body and spirit, but there was discontent in the looks he turned on her.

One afternoon she read in the papers that David Cannon and Frances Maury were back from South America after a triumphant series of recitals.  They were to give a concert the following month.  Her indifference to the news, she thought drearily, was an indication of how far she had travelled away from her old life.  She did not even want to see David Cannon.

It was Oliver who brought up the subject that evening.

“David’s back.  If you’d been with him, how excited I should have felt to-day!” he remarked.  “Odd, isn’t it?”

“You would have been in France,” she reminded him.

They sat on in silence for a while.

He laid his book aside with a sudden brisk movement.

“Myra, why don’t you sing again?”

“For you, to-night?”

“I mean professionally,” he blurted out.

She drifted across the room to a shadowy corner.

“I don’t know,” she said rather flatly, bending over a bowl of white roses.  “I suppose I don’t feel like it any more.  It’s hard to take things up again.”

He fingered his book; then, as if despite himself, he said;

“I’m afraid, dear, that we’re letting ourselves grow old.”

She swung sharply about, catching her breath.

“You mean I am?”

“Both of us.”  He was cautious, tender even, but she was not deceived.  It was almost a relief that he had spoken.

“Tell me, dear,” she said from her corner.  “You’re bored, aren’t you? 
Oh, not with me”—­she forestalled his protest—­“but just plain bored. 
Isn’t it so?” Her voice was deceptively quiet.

He stirred in his chair, fidgeted under the direct attack, and decided not to evade it.

“I think we’ve been buried long enough,” he finally confessed.  “I love our evenings together, of course; but a little change now and then might be agreeable.  Perhaps it isn’t a good thing for two people to be thrown entirely on each other’s company.  And I’ve been wondering, dear”—­he hesitated, carefully picking his words—­ “I’ve been wondering if you would not be happier if you had other interests—­interests of your own.”