a briefer time, for a greater time; but all along and in the end,
beneath everything else, he is to her--an Incident."

He turned and confronted her, not without a gleam of humor in his
eyes.

"That did not trouble me," he said tenderly. "Those were not discords
to me."

Her eyes rested on his face with inscrutable searching. She made no
comment.

His own face grew grave. After a moment of debate with himself as to
whether he should be forced to do a thing he would rather not do, he
turned in his chair and laid down his pen as though separating himself
from his work. Then he said, in a tone that ended playfulness:

"Do I not understand? Have I not understood all the time? For a year
now I have been shutting myself up at spare hours in this room and at
this work--without any explanation to you. Such a thing never occurred
before in our lives. You have shared everything. I have relied upon
you and I have needed you, and you have never failed me. And this
apparently has been your reward--to be rudely shut out at last. Now
you come in and I tell you that the work is done--quite
finished--without a word to you about it. Do I not understand?" he
repeated. "Have I not understood all along? It is true; outwardly as
regards this work you have been--the Incident."

As he paused, she made a slight gesture with one hand as though she
did not care for what he was saying and brushed away the fragile web