The Angora cat, with feline caution, peeped into the room.  Patty, who loved cats, made a dash for the fluffy animal, which turned tail and bolted for the kitchen, Patty a close second.

For the first time since the marriage Kate and Warrington were alone together.  He gazed at her, mildly speculative.

“Well, what do you see?” she asked.

“You are certainly one of the most beautiful women in the world,” he declared, sighing.

“You say ’one of’?” frowning.  “There was a time when it was not general; you used the definite article.”

“I know it.”

“Then there must be somebody else,” quickly.

“I’m not a marrying man,” he said evasively.

“Is it Patty, Dick?  Oh, if it were only Patty!”

“I’m not good enough for Patty, Kate.  The Lord knows, though, that I wish I were.  She embarrasses me at times with her implicit faith in my goodness.”

“Ah, Richard, what a terrible past yours was!” mockingly.  “Nonsense!” briskly.  “You are guilty of nothing but innocuous villainies.  If there were fairies I should ask one to make you fall violently in love with Patty.”

“No fairies need apply,” ambiguously.  “But you; you seem to be happy.”

“There can not be a happier woman in the world.  Let me confess.  The confession may hurt your vanity.  I love my husband better than I dreamed I could love.  He is so just, so tender and strong.  And isn’t he handsome?  I am madly jealous of every woman that comes near him.  And once upon a time I believed that I was in love with Mr. Richard.”  There was no coquetry in this frank statement.

“Any one can see that you are happy.”

“I want every one to see it.  I want to tell everybody, too.  You have no idea how strong he is, Dick.  Yesterday I was in the shops with him.  A rail was in the way; the men about did not see it; or refused to see it.  John stooped, picked it up with his bare hands, and dropped it to one side.  There are but two men in the shops who can do that.  But I have a horror of those great bars of twisting white iron.  They terrify me.  I do not understand, but the men are always sullen when I am there.  John says it’s my imagination.”

“It probably is.  Perhaps the begrimed faces have something to do with it.”

“I can read the human countenance too well,” she said.  “Is it because I have been on the stage?  Have these men a base opinion of me?”

“Impossible!”

“And they seem to dislike John, too.”

“John can take care of himself.  He’ll wait a long while, but when he moves forward nothing can stop him.  Don’t you ever miss the glare of the lights?” he asked, his endeavor being to interest her in something foreign to the shops.

“Dick, I have almost forgotten that I ever acted.  You will remember that I refused to assist in the amateur theatricals last winter.  Act?  I hate the word.  It suggests the puppet, the living in other people’s worlds, parrot-wise, in imitation.”