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thrown in on her own account. She even spoke amiably of
Carlotta. I have not had so thoroughly enjoyable a day with
Judith for a long time.
I don't think she set herself deliberately to please me. That I
should resent. I know that women in order to please an
unsuspecting male will walk weary miles by his side with blisters
on their feet and a beatific smile on their faces. But Judith
has far too much commonsense.
Another pleaisng feature of the day's jaunt has been the absence
of the appeal to sentimentality which Judith of late, especially
since her return from Paris, has been overfond of making. This
idle habit of mind, for such it is in reality, has been arrested
by an intellectual interest. One of her great friends is
Willoughby, the economic statistician, who in his humorous
moments, writes articles for popular magazines, illustrated by
scale diagrams. He will draw, for instance, a series of men
representing the nations of the world, and varying in bulk and
stature according to the respective populations; and over against
these he will set a series of pigs whose sizes are proportionate
to the amount of pork per head eaten by the different
nationalities. To these queer minds that live on facts (I myself
could as easily thrive on a diet of eggshells) this sort of
pictorial information is peculiarly fascinating. But Judith, who
like most women has a freakish mental as well as physical
digestion, delights in knowing how many hogs a cabinet minister
will eat during, a lifetime, and how much of the earth's surface
could be scoured by the world's yearly output of scrubbing
brushes. I don't blame her for it any more than I blame her for
a love of radishes, which make me ill; it is not as if she had no
wholesome tastes. On the contrary, I commend her. Now,
Willoughby, it seems, has found the public appetite so great for
these thoughtsaving boluses of knowledgeunpleasant drugs, as
it were, put up into gelatine capsulesthat he needs assistance.
He has asked Judith to devil for him, and I have today persuaded
her to accept his offer. It will be an excellent thing for the
dear woman. It will be an absorbing occupation. It will divert
the current of her thoughts from the sentimentality that I
deprecate, and provided she does not serve up hardboiled facts to
me at dinner, she will be the pleasanter companion.
The only return to it was when I kissed her at parting.
That is the first, Marcus, for twelve hours, she said; very
sweetly, it is truebut still reproachfully.

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