Rhoda’s eyes twinkled, and Miss Barfoot laughed.  Everard was allowing himself a freedom in expression which hitherto he had sedulously avoided.

‘Yes,’ he continued, ’she was by birth a lady—­which made the infliction harder to bear.  Poor old Poppleton!  Again and again I have heard him—­what do you think?—­laboriously explaining jests to her.  That was a trial, as you may imagine.  There we sat, we three, in the unbeautiful little parlour—­for they were anything but rich.  Poppleton would say something that convulsed me with laughter—­in spite of my efforts, for I always dreaded the result so much that I strove my hardest to do no more than smile appreciation.  My laugh compelled Mrs. Poppleton to stare at me—­ oh, her eyes I Thereupon, her husband began his dread performance.  The patience, the heroic patience, of that dear, good fellow!  I have known him explain, and re-explain, for a quarter of an hour, and invariably without success.  It might be a mere pun; Mrs. Poppleton no more understood the nature of a pun than of the binomial theorem.  But worse was when the jest involved some allusion.  When I heard Poppleton begin to elucidate, to expound, the perspiration already on his forehead, I looked at him with imploring anguish.  Why would he attempt the impossible?  But the kind fellow couldn’t disregard his wife’s request.  Shall I ever forget her.  “Oh—­yes—­I see"?—­when obviously she saw nothing but the wall at which she sat staring.’

‘I have known her like,’ said Miss Barfoot merrily.

’I am convinced his madness didn’t come from business anxiety.  It was the necessity, ever recurring, ever before him, of expounding jokes to his wife.  Believe me, it was nothing but that.’

‘It seems very probable,’ asserted Rhoda dryly.

’Then there’s another friend of yours whose marriage has been unfortunate,’ said the hostess.  ’They tell me that Mr. Orchard has forsaken his wife, and without intelligible reason.’

‘There, too, I can offer an explanation,’ replied Barfoot quietly, ’though you may doubt whether it justifies him.  I met Orchard a few months ago in Alexandria, met him by chance in the street, and didn’t recognize him until he spoke to me.  He was worn to skin and bone.  I found that he had abandoned all his possessions to Mrs. Orchard, and just kept himself alive on casual work for the magazines, wandering about the shores of the Mediterranean like an uneasy spirit.  He showed me the thing he had last written, and I see it is published in this month’s Macmillan.  Do read it.  An exquisite description of a night in Alexandria.  One of these days he will starve to death.  A pity; he might have done fine work.’

’But we await your explanation.  What business has he to desert his wife and children?’