I was distressed that evening on the pier." He looked up, startled.
"I suppose I talked like Wilsey that night ?" "You said you might be old-fashioned but--" "Don't, please, tell me what I said, Mrs.Wayne." He went on more seriously: "I've got to an age when I can't expect great happiness from life--just a continuance of fairly satisfactory outside conditions; but since I've known you, I've felt a lightening, a brightening, an intensifying of my own inner life that I believe comes as near happiness as anything I've ever felt, and I don't want to lose it on account of a reactionary old couple like that on the sofa over there." He dreaded being left alone with the reactionary old couple when presently Mrs.Wayne, very well pleased with her evening, took her departure.

He assisted her into her taxi, and as he came upstairs with a buoyant step, he wished it were not ridiculous at his age to feel so light-hearted.
He saw that his absence had given his guests an instant of freer criticism, for they were tucking away smiles as he entered.
"A very unusual type, is she not, our friend, Mrs.Wayne ?" said Wilsey.
"A little bit of a reformer, I'm afraid," said Mrs.Baxter.
"Don't be too hard on her," answered Lanley.
"Oh, very charming, very charming," put in Wilsey, feeling, perhaps, that Mrs.Baxter had been severe; "but the poor lady's mind is evidently seething with a good many undigested ideas." "You should have pointed out the flaws in her reasoning, Wilsey," said his host.
"Argue with a woman, Lanley!" Mr.Wilsey held up his hand in protest.
"No, no, I never argue with a woman.

They take it so personally." "I think we had an example of that this evening," said Mrs.Baxter.
"Yes, indeed," the lawyer went on.

"See how the dear lady missed the point, and became so illogical and excited under our little discussion." "Funny," said Lanley.

"I got just the opposite impression." "Opposite ?" "I thought it was you who missed the point, Wilsey." He saw how deeply he had betrayed himself as the others exchanged a startled glance.