There was silence for a moment and then Price said awkwardly: "It is a
pity you haven't the chain or you could wear the ruby for the rest of
the evening."

She turned her eyes from the window and stared at him. "I have the
chain--" She raised her hand to the tip of her bodice--"but--but--you
can't mean--it isn't possible that you can forgive me."

"I think I have taken very bad care of you. What are you, after all, but
a brilliant child? I am thirty-three--"

He suddenly tore off his domino with, a feeling of rage, and thrust his
hands into his friendly pockets. He had never made many verbal
protestations to her, although the most exacting wife could have found no
fault with his love-making. But to-night he felt dumb; he was mortally
afraid of appearing high and noble and magnanimous.

"You see, things always happen during the first years of married life.
Perhaps more happens--I mean in a pettier way--when the man has leisure
and can see too much of his wife. In my case--our case--it was the other
way--and something almost tragic happened. So I vote we treat it
casually, as something that must have been expected sooner or later to
disturb our--our--even tenor--and forget it."

"Forget it?"

"Well, yes. I can if you can."

"And can you forget who I am?"