“Something did ail you.  You can’t cheat me.”

“I don’t know what you are driving at.”

“Something did ail you.  You’ll spoil that peony.  You’ve got all the weeds out.  What on earth are you digging round it that way for?  What ailed you?”

“I don’t know what you are driving at.”

“You can’t cheat me.  Something is to pay.  For the land’s sake, leave that peony alone, and get the weeds out from around that syringa bush.  You act as if you were possessed.  What ailed you and Mr. Allen this morning?  I want to know.”

“I don’t know what you are driving at,” Henry said again, but he obediently turned his attention to the syringa bush.  He always obeyed a woman in small matters, and reserved his masculine prerogatives for large ones.

Sylvia returned to the house.  Her mouth was set hard.  Nobody knew how on occasions Sylvia longed for another woman to whom to speak her mind.  She loved her husband, but no man was capable of entirely satisfying all her moods.  She started to go to the attic on another exploring expedition; then she stopped suddenly, reflecting.  The end of her reflection was that she took off her gingham apron, tied on a nice white one trimmed with knitted lace, and went down the street to Mrs. Thomas P. Ayres’s.  Thomas P. Ayres had been dead for the last ten years, but everybody called his widow Mrs. T. P. Ayres.  Mrs. Ayres kept no maid.  She had barely enough income to support herself and her daughter.  She came to the door herself.  She was a small, delicate, pretty woman, and her little thin hands were red with dish-water.

“Good-morning,” she said, in a weary, gentle fashion.  “Come in, Mrs. Whitman, won’t you?” As she spoke she wrinkled her forehead between her curves of gray hair.  She had always wrinkled her forehead, but in some inscrutable fashion the wrinkles had always smoothed out.  Her forehead was smooth as a girl’s.  She smiled, and the smile was exactly in accord with her voice; it was weary and gentle.  There was not the slightest joy in it, only a submission and patience which might evince a slight hope of joy to come.

“I’ve got so much to do I ought not to stop long,” said Sylvia, “but I thought I’d run in a minute.”

“Walk right in,” said Mrs. Ayres, and Sylvia followed her into the sitting-room, which was quite charming, with a delicate flowered paper and a net-work of green vines growing in bracket-pots, which stood all about.  There were also palms and ferns.  The small room looked like a bower, although it was very humbly furnished.  Sylvia sat down.

“You always look so cool in here,” she said, “and it’s a warm morning for so early in the season.”

“It’s the plants and vines, I guess,” replied Mrs. Ayres, sitting down opposite Mrs. Whitman.  “Lucy has real good luck with them.”

“How is Lucy this morning?”

Mrs. Ayres wrinkled her forehead again.  “She’s in bed with a sick headache,” she said.  “She has an awful lot of them lately.  I’m afraid she’s kind of run down.”