Mr. Povey was an exceedingly methodical person, and he was also one of those persons who must always be ‘beforehand’ with time.  Thus at night he would arrange his raiment so that in the morning it might be reassumed in the minimum of minutes.  He was not a man, for example, to leave the changing of studs from one shirt to another till the morrow.  Had it been practicable, he would have brushed his hair the night before.  Constance already loved to watch his meticulous preparations.  She saw him now go into his old bedroom and return with a paper collar, which he put on the dressing-table next to a black necktie.  His shop-suit was laid out on a chair.

“Oh, Sam!” she exclaimed impulsively, “you surely aren’t going to begin wearing those horrid paper collars again!” During the honeymoon he had worn linen collars.

Her tone was perfectly gentle, but the remark, nevertheless, showed a lack of tact.  It implied that all his life Mr. Povey had been enveloping his neck in something which was horrid.  Like all persons with a tendency to fall into the ridiculous, Mr. Povey was exceedingly sensitive to personal criticisms.  He flushed darkly.

“I didn’t know they were ‘horrid,’” he snapped.  He was hurt and angry.  Anger had surprised him unawares.

Both of them suddenly saw that they were standing on the edge of a chasm, and drew back.  They had imagined themselves to be wandering safely in a flowered meadow, and here was this bottomless chasm!  It was most disconcerting.

Mr. Povey’s hand hovered undecided over the collar.  “However—­” he muttered.

She could feel that he was trying with all his might to be gentle and pacific.  And she was aghast at her own stupid clumsiness, she so experienced!

“Just as you like, dear,” she said quickly.  “Please!”

“Oh no!” And he did his best to smile, and went off gawkily with the collar and came back with a linen one.

Her passion for him burned stronger than ever.  She knew then that she did not love him for his good qualities, but for something boyish and naive that there was about him, an indescribable something that occasionally, when his face was close to hers, made her dizzy.

The chasm had disappeared.  In such moments, when each must pretend not to have seen or even suspected the chasm, small-talk is essential.

“Wasn’t that Mr. Yardley in the shop to-night?” began Constance.

“Yes.”

“What did he want?”

“I’d sent for him.  He’s going to paint us a signboard.”

Useless for Samuel to make-believe that nothing in this world is more ordinary than a signboard.

“Oh!” murmured Constance.  She said no more, the episode of the paper collar having weakened her self-confidence.

But a signboard!

What with servants, chasms, and signboards, Constance considered that her life as a married woman would not be deficient in excitement.  Long afterwards, she fell asleep, thinking of Sophia.