“How did it happen that you’ve never tried your voice lately?” he asked after a time.

“I gave it up long ago,” she said.  “Didn’t I ever tell you that I used to sing and lost my voice?”

“No,” he answered.  “Charlie did just now.  You rather took my breath away.  It’s wonderful.  You’d be a sensation in opera.”

“I might have been,” she corrected.  “That was one of my little dreams.  You don’t know what a grief it was to me when I got over that throat trouble and found I couldn’t sing.  I used to try and try—­and my voice would break every time.  I lost all heart to try after a while.  That was when I wanted to take up nursing, and they wouldn’t let me.  I haven’t thought about singing for an age.  I’ve crooned lullabies to Jacky without remembering that I once had volume enough to drown out an accompanist.  Dad was awfully proud of my voice.”

“You’ve reason to be proud of it now,” Fyfe said slowly.  “It’s a voice in ten thousand.  What are going to do with it?”

Stella drew the brush mechanically through her heavy hair.  She had been asking herself that.  What could she do?  A long road and a hard one lay ahead of her or any other woman who essayed to make her voice the basis of a career.  Over and above that she was not free to seek such a career.  Fyfe himself knew that, and it irritated her that he should ask such a question.  She swung about on him.

“Nothing,” she said a trifle tartly.  “How can I?  Granting that my voice is worth the trouble, would you like me to go and study in the East or abroad?  Would you be willing to bear the expense of such an undertaking?  To have me leave Jack to nursemaids and you to your logs?”

“So that in the fullness of time I might secure a little reflected glory as the husband of Madame Fyfe, the famous soprano,” he replied slowly.  “Well, I can’t say that’s a particularly pleasing prospect.”

“Then why ask me what I’m going to do with it?” she flung back impatiently.  “It’ll be an asset—­like my looks—­and—­and—­”

She dropped her face in her hands, choking back an involuntary sob.  Fyfe crossed the room at a bound, put his arms around her.

“Stella, Stella!” he cried sharply.  “Don’t be a fool.”

“D—­don’t be cross, Jack,” she whispered.  “Please.  I’m sorry.  I simply can’t help it.  You don’t understand.”

“Oh, don’t I?” he said savagely.  “I understand too well; that’s the devil of it.  But I suppose that’s a woman’s way,—­to feed her soul with illusions, and let the realities go hang.  Look here.”

He caught her by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet, facing him.  There was a fire in his eye, a hard shutting together of his lips that frightened her a little.

“Look here,” he said roughly.  “Take a brace, Stella.  Do you realize what sort of a state of mind you’re drifting into?  You married me under more or less compulsion,—­compulsion of circumstances,—­and gradually you’re beginning to get dissatisfied, to pity yourself.  You’ll precipitate things you maybe don’t dream of now, if you keep on.  Damn it, I didn’t create the circumstances.  I only showed you a way out.  You took it.  It satisfied you for a while; you can’t deny it did.  But it doesn’t any more.  You’re nursing a lot of illusions, Stella, that are going to make your life full of misery.”