suspicion that you were getting rather into that state of mind. You
dropped your music, and partly, I've no doubt, because you didn't find
enough intelligent sympathy in me. You went in for painting, and you've
dropped that ----'

'It was winter, you see,' Alma interrupted.

'Yes, but that wasn't the only reason. It meant general failure of
energy -- the kind of thing I've known myself, only too well.'

'What -- here?' asked Alma, with some alacrity.

'I meant now and again, all through my life. No; here I've gone on right
enough, with a tolerably even mind; and for that very reason I haven't
noticed any signs of the other thing in you -- till just now, when you
lost your head. Why haven't you been frank with me?'

'You take it for granted that I had anything to be frank about,' Alma
remarked.

'Yes -- and you don't contradict me.'

'Then what were you going to say, Harvey?'

She bent towards him, with that air of sweet reasonableness which showed
her features at their best: eye tranquil and intelligent, lips
ingenuously smiling; a countenance she wore not thrice in a twelvemonth,
but by Harvey well remembered amid all changes, and held to express the
true being of the woman he loved.