"Why, John is all up in the air about something or other, and Lucy is
worried sick about him. I thought probably she'd told you what the
trouble was. I've asked. She said probably money had something to do
with it; and that was all I could get out of her. Come down off that
high horse and talk to me. I'm not riding till four."
So I left my pony standing at the front gate and Evelyn and I strolled
about the grounds.
"Money isn't the whole trouble," said Evelyn presently. "I know that.
Something even more serious has gone terribly wrong. And I want to
help."
"Won't they work it out best by themselves?" I suggested.
"Sometimes," she said, "it seems almost as if they had quarreled.
Sometimes John looks at her--Oh, as if he was going to die and was
looking at her for the last time. Could he have something serious the
matter with him?"
"He could, of course, but it doesn't seem likely."
"He doesn't _look_ well."
"True."
"Look here, Archie, don't you know what's wrong?"
"I wish I did," said I. "If I could right it."
As a matter of fact I didn't know what was wrong. I knew only that
Lucy no longer loved her husband. But why she no longer loved him was
the real trouble, and she had not told me that, even if she knew It
herself. But wishing to strengthen my answer, I said: "You're the one
who ought to know what's wrong. You're on the spot. And besides,
you're a woman and a woman is supposed to have three intuitions to a
man's one."
Evelyn ignored this.
"Sometimes," she said, "John's so gentle and pathetic that I want to
cry. Sometimes he is cantankerous and flies into rages about trifles.
It's getting on my nerves."
"Why not pack up your duds and move on?"
"Oh, because----"