my dear will not catch trouble

"as for its being silly, i don't mind that. sometimes it's great fun to be silly, like children playing statues and dying of laughter. and sometimes being silly breaks the even pace and lets you get a new start. when i am troubled, i play a game of silly so that my dear will not catch trouble from me. she hasn't found me out yet, or if she has, i'll never know it. so many things i don't know about my mary, and among them, how much she knows about me."

-john steinbeck, the winter of our discontent