“Oh no, she won’t.”

“Yes, she will.  On principle.  I understand her.”

“I confess I don’t.”

“But I believe,” said she, “if you explained it all to her, she’d give in for once.”

Rather against his judgment, he endeavoured to explain, “We simply can’t not ask him, you know.”

“Ask him by all means.  But I shall have to put myself on the Gardners, or the Proctors, for the Eliotts are away.”

“Don’t be absurd.  You know you won’t be allowed to do anything of the sort.”

“There’s nothing else left for me to do.”

He looked at her gravely; but his speech was light, for it was not in him to be weighty.  “Don’t you think that, at this holy season, for the sake of peace, and good-will, and all the rest of it, you might drop it just for once?  And let the poor chap have a happy Christmas?”

She seemed to be considering it.  “You think me very hard,” said she.

“Oh no, no, not hard.”  But he was wondering for the first time what this wife of his was made of.

“Yes, hard.  I don’t want you to think me hard.  If you could understand why I cannot meet that man—­what it means to me—­the effect it has on me.”

“What,” he said, “is the precise effect?” He was really interested.  He had always been curious to know how different men affected different women, and to get his knowledge at first hand.

“It’s the effect,” said she, “of being brought into contact with something terribly painful and repulsive, the effect of intense suffering—­of unbearable disgust.”

He listened with his thoughtful, interested air.  “I know.  The effect that your friend Canon Wharton sometimes has on me.”

“I see no resemblance between Canon Wharton and your friend Mr. Gorst.”

“And I see no resemblance between my friend Mr. Gorst and Canon Wharton.”

She was silent, gathering all her strength to deliver her spirit’s last appeal.

“Dear,” said she (for she wished to be very gentle with him, since he had thought her hard), “dear, I wonder if you ever realise what the thing we call—­purity is?”

He blushed violently.

“I only know it’s one of those things one doesn’t speak about.”

“I must speak,” said she.

“You needn’t,” he said curtly; “I understand all right.”

“If you did you wouldn’t ask me.  All the same, Walter—­” She lifted to him the set face of a saint surrendered to the torture—­“If you compel me—­”

“Compel you?  I can’t compel you.  Especially if you’re going to look like that.”

“It’s no use,” he said to Edith.  “First she talks of dining with the Gardners—­”

“She will, too—­”

“No.  She’ll stay—­if I compel her.”

“Oh, I see.  That’s worse.  She’d let him see it.  He wouldn’t enjoy his Christmas if he came.”

“No, poor fellow, I really don’t think he would.  She’s awfully funny about him.”