There was no stint of that charm when William was not reading to us.
Mary was in no awe of him, apart from his work, and in no awe at all
of me: she used to laugh at us both, for one thing and another--just
the same laugh as I had first heard when William tried to unharness
the pony. I cultivated in myself whatever amused her in me; I drew out
whatever amused her in William; I never let slip any of the things
that amused her in herself. `Chaff' is a great bond; and I should have
enjoyed our bouts of it even without Mary's own special obbligato. She
used to call me (for I was very urban in those days) the Gentleman
from London. I used to call her the Brave Little Woman. Whatever
either of us said or did could be twisted easily into relation to
those two titles; and our bouts, to which William listened with a
puzzled, benevolent smile, used to cease only because Mary regarded me
as a possible purveyor of what William, she was sure, wanted and
needed, down there in the country, alone with her: intellectual
conversation, after his work. She often, I think, invented duties in
garden or kitchen so that he should have this stimulus, or luxury,
without hindrance. But when William was alone with me it was about her
that he liked to talk, and that I myself liked to talk too.
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