ent to Clare's. You are, and I know you will forgive my putting it so plainly, a little wild still—doubtless owing to your earlier years. Clare is gentle, bright, happy. She has never given my husband or myself a moment's trouble, but that is because we understood her nature. We knew that she loved people about her to be happy—she flourished in the sun, she drooped under the clouds . . . under the clouds” Mrs. Rossiter repeated again softly, as she searched, with care, for her next words.
Irritation was rising within Peter. Why should it be concluded so inevitably that the fault was all on Peter's side and not at all on Clare's—after all, there were reasons . . . but he pulled himself up. He had behaved like a beast.
“I've tried very hard—” he began.
“Clouds—” said Mrs. Rossiter. “And you, Peter, are at times—I have seen it myself and I know that it is apparent to others—inclined to be morose—gloomy, a little gloomy—” Her fingers tapped the silk of her dress. “Dear Clare, considering what her own life has been, shrinks, I must confess it seems to me quite naturally, from any reminder of what your own earlier circumstances have been. Look at it, Peter, for an instant from the outside and you will see, at once, I am sure, what it must have been to her, yesterday, to come into her nursery, to find tables, chairs overturned, strange men shouting and flinging poor little Stephen towards the ceiling—some talk about Cornwall—really, Peter, I think you can understand . . .”
He abandoned all his defences. “I know—I ought to have realised . . . it was quite natural . . .”
In the back of his head he heard her words “You're morose—you're wild. Other people find you so—you're making a mess of everything and every one knows it—”
He was humbled to the dust. If only he might make it all right with Clare, then he would see to it—Oh! yes he would see to it—that nothing of this kind ever happened again. From Mrs. Rossiter's standpoint he looked back upon his life and found it all one ignoble, selfish muddle. Dear Clare!—so eager to be happy and he had made her miserable.
