“It is her house, and she has that right, certainly.  The question is whether I am willing to allow the world to point to an architectural hotch-potch and call it mine.”

“Isn’t this another case of neglecting the practical side, Wilbur?  I am sure you exaggerate the importance of the changes she desires.  If I were building a house, I should expect to have it built to suit me, and I should be annoyed if the architect stood on points and were captious.”  Selma under the influence of this more congenial theme had partially recovered her equanimity.  Her duty was her pleasure, and it was clearly her duty to lead her husband in the right path and save him from becoming the victim of his own shortcomings.

Wilbur sighed.  “I have told her,” he said, “that I would submit another entirely new sketch.  It may be that I can introduce some of her and her daughter’s splurgy and garish misconceptions without making myself hopelessly ridiculous.”

He entered the house wearily, and as he stood before the hall table under the chandelier, Selma took him by the arm and turning him toward her gazed into his face.  “I wish to examine you.  Pauline said to me to-day that she thinks you are looking pale.  I don’t see that you are; no more so than usual.  You never were rosy exactly.  Do you know I have an idea that she thinks I am working you to death.”

“Pauline?  What reason has she to think anything of the kind?  Besides, I am perfectly well.  It is a delight to work for a woman like you, dearest.”  He took her face between his hands and kissed her tenderly; yet gravely, too, as though the riddle of life did not solve itself at the touch of her lips.  “You will be interested to hear,” he added, “that I shall finish and send off the Wetmore College plans this week.”

“I am glad they are off your hands, for you will have more time for other work.”

“Yes.  I think I may have done something worth while,” he said, wistfully.

“And I shall try not to be annoyed if someone else gets the award,” she responded, smoothing down the sheen of her evening dress and regarding herself in the mirror.

“Of course someone else may have taken equal pains and done a better thing.  It is necessary always to be prepared for that.”

“That is the trouble.  That is why I disapprove of competitions.”

“Selma, you are talking nonsense,” Littleton exclaimed with sudden sternness.

The decision in his tone made her start.  The color mounted to her face, and she surveyed him for an instant haughtily, as though he had done her an injury.  Then with an oratorical air and her archangel look, she said, “You do not seem to understand, Wilbur, that I am trying to save you from yourself.”

Littleton was ever susceptible to that look of hers.  It suggested incarnate conscientiousness, and seemed incompatible with human imperfection or unworthy ambitions.  He was too wroth to relent altogether, but he compressed his lips and returned her look searchingly, as though he would scrutinize her soul.