CHAPTER II


It was not long before Dr. Chetwynd's eyes were fully open to the
mistake he had made and that he realised the fact that you cannot
fashion a Dresden vase out of earthenware, and though pinchbeck may
pass muster for gold, it does not make it the real article.

At first Bella did try her "level best" as Saidie put it, to be all
that Jack required of her. She took his lecturings humbly, held her
peace when he scolded her (and I am afraid he constantly did), and
acknowledged in the depths of her shallow little mind that she fell
far short of what his wife should be. But as time went on she grew
less solicitous about pleasing him. His standard was an almost
impossible one to the very second-rate little American girl, to whom
the atmosphere of the "Halls" was far more congenial than the
humdrum, quiet life she led in the Camberwell New Road, and she
slipped back little by little into the mire out of which he had
raised her.

"I can never learn to be what he wants me to," she said a little
pathetically to Saidie--"It is like standing on tiptoe all the time
trying to reach up to his standard. I'm sick of it. If he loved me
well enough to marry me, the same love ought to be strong enough to
make him contented with me. After all, I'm the same Bella now that I
was then."

A word of advice at this juncture might have quieted the poor little
wife, and brought her back into safe paths, for she really loved Jack
in her heart; but Saidie was not the person to give it. Privately she