‘But never quite like us.’

’Oh no, never quite like us.  But with a kind of family resemblance, you know.  Married people do usually end by knowing each other a little better than on the first day they met.’

‘What did you think of me, Frank?’

‘I’ve told you often.’

‘Well, tell me again.’

‘What’s the use when you know?’

‘But I like to hear.’

‘Well, it’s just spoiling you.’

‘I love to be spoiled.’

’Well, then, I thought to myself—­If I can only have that woman for my own, I believe I will do something in life yet.  And I also thought—­If I don’t get that woman for my own, I will never, never be the same man again.’

‘Really, Frank, the very first day you saw me?’

‘Yes, the very first day.’

‘And then?’

’And then, day by day, and week by week, that feeling grew deeper and stronger, until at last you swallowed up all my other hopes, and ambitions, and interests.  I hardly dare think, Maude, what would have happened to me if you had refused me.’

She laughed aloud with delight.

’How sweet it is to hear you say so!  And the wonderful thing is that you have never seemed disappointed.  I always expected that some day after marriage—­not immediately, perhaps, but at the end of a week or so—­you would suddenly give a start, like those poor people who are hypnotised, and you would say, “Why, I used to think that she was pretty!  I used to think that she was sweet!  How could I be so infatuated over a little, insignificant, ignorant, selfish, uninteresting—­” O Frank, the neighbours will see you?’

‘Well, then, you mustn’t provoke me.’

‘What will Mrs. Potter think?’

’You should pull down the blinds before you make speeches of that sort.’

‘Now do sit quiet and be a good boy.’

‘Well, then, tell me what you thought.’

‘I thought you were a very good tennis-player.’

‘Anything else?’

‘And you talked nicely.’

’Did I?  I never felt such a stick in my life.  I was as nervous as a cat.’

’That was so delightful.  I do hate people who are very cool and assured.  I saw that you were disturbed, and I even thought—­’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, I thought that perhaps it was I who disturbed you.’

‘And you liked me?’

‘I was very interested in you.’

’Well, that is the blessed miracle which I can never get over.  You, with your beauty, and your grace, and your rich father, and every young man at your feet, and I, a fellow with neither good looks, nor learning, nor prospects, nor—­’

‘Be quiet, sir!  Yes, you shall!  Now?’

’By Jove, there is old Mrs. Potter at the window!  We’ve done it this time.  Let us get back to serious conversation again.’

‘How did we leave it?’