"Of course I'm not.
This is what I've always wanted. It's my idea of life
to a 't.' Only--I suppose everything needs a break
in it now and then--if only for the comfort of getting
back into the old rut again."
"The rut--yes," she commented, musingly. "Apparently there's
always a rut."
Thorpe gave her the mystified yet uncomplaining glance
she knew so well in his eyes. For once, the impulse
to throw hidden things up into his range of view prevailed
with her.
"Do you know," she said, with a confused half-smile at the
novelty of her mood for elucidation, "I fancied a rut was
the one thing there could be no question about with you.
I had the notion that you were incapable of ruts--and
conventional grooves. I thought you--as Carlyle puts it--I
thought you were a man who had swallowed all the formulas."
Thorpe looked down at his stomach doubtfully. "I see
what you mean," he said at last, but in a tone without
any note of conviction.
"I doubt it," she told him, with light readiness--"for I
don't see myself what I mean. I forget indeed what it
was I said. And so you think you'll go up to town tonight?"
A sudden comprehension of what was slipping away
from his grasp aroused him. "No--no," he urged her,
"don't forget what it was you said! I wish you'd talk
more with me about that.
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