They were both, by their temperaments, absurdly and diversely, almost incompatibly young.  At two-and-thirty Majendie, through very worldliness, was a boy in his infinite capacity for recoil from trouble.  Anne had preserved that crude and cloistral youth which belongs to all lives passed between walls that protect them from the world.  At seven-and-twenty she was a girl, with a girl’s indestructible innocence.  She had not yet felt within her the springs of her own womanhood.  Marriage had not touched the spirit, which had kept itself apart even from her happiness, in the days that were given her to be happy in.  Her suffering was like a child’s, and her attitude to it bitterly immature.  It bounded her; it annihilated the intellectual form of time, obliterating the past, and intercepting any view of a future.  Only, unlike a child, and unlike Majendie, she lacked the power of the rebound to joy.

“Dear,” said her husband anxiously, as the cab drew up at the door of the house in Prior Street, “have you realised that poor Edith is probably preparing to receive us with glee?  Do you think you could manage to look a little less unhappy?”

The words were a shock to her, but they did her the service of a shock by recalling her to the realities outside herself.  All the courtesies and kindnesses she owed to those about her insisted that her bridal home-coming must lack no sign of grace.  She forced a smile.

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t know I was looking particularly unhappy.”

It struck her that Walter was not looking by any means too happy himself.

“It doesn’t matter; only, we don’t want to dash her down, first thing, do we?”

“No—­no.  Dear Edith.  And there’s Nanna—­how sweet of her—­and Kate, and Mary, too.”

The old nurse stood on the doorstep to welcome them; her fellow-servants were behind her, smiling, at the door.  Interested faces appeared at the windows of the house opposite.  At the moment of alighting Anne was aware that the eyes of many people were upon them, and she was thankful that she had married a man whose self-possession, at any rate, she could rely on.  Majendie’s manner was perfect.  He avoided both the bridegroom’s offensive assiduity and his no less offensive affectation of indifference.  It had occurred to him that, in the circumstances, Anne might find it peculiarly disagreeable to be stared at.

“Look at Nanna,” he whispered, to distract her attention.  “There’s no doubt about her being glad to see you.”

Nanna grasped the hands held out to her, hanging her head on one side, and smiling her tremorous, bashful smile.  The other two, Kate and Mary, came forward, affectionate, but more self-contained.  Anne realised with a curious surprise that she was coming back to a household that she knew, that knew her and loved her.  In the last week she had forgotten Prior Street.

Majendie watched her anxiously.  But she, too, had qualities which could be relied on.  As she passed into the house she had held her head high, with an air of flinging back the tragic gloom like a veil from her face.  She was not a woman to trail a tragedy up and down the staircase.  Above all, he could trust her trained loyalty to convention.