He told himself that he was recovering his sense of proportion,
getting to see things in their true light; and if he now thought
of his rash appeal to his wife's sympathy it was as an act of
folly from the consequences of which he had been saved by the
providence that watches over madmen. He had little leisure to
observe Alexa; but he concluded that the common-sense momentarily
denied him had counselled her uncritical acceptance of the
inevitable. If such a quality was a poor substitute for the
passionate justness that had once seemed to characterize her, he
accepted the alternative as a part of that general lowering of the
key that seems needful to the maintenance of the matrimonial duet.
What woman ever retained her abstract sense of justice where
another woman was concerned? Possibly the thought that he had
profited by Mrs. Aubyn's tenderness was not wholly disagreeable to
his wife.

When the pressure of work began to lessen, and he found himself,
in the lengthening afternoons, able to reach home somewhat
earlier, he noticed that the little drawing-room was always full
and that he and his wife seldom had an evening alone together.
When he was tired, as often happened, she went out alone; the idea
of giving up an engagement to remain with him seemed not to occur
to her. She had shown, as a girl, little fondness for society,
nor had she seemed to regret it during the year they had spent in
the country. He reflected, however, that he was sharing the
common lot of husbands, who proverbially mistake the early ardors
of housekeeping for a sign of settled domesticity. Alexa, at any
rate, was refuting his theory as inconsiderately as a seedling
defeats the gardener's expectations. An undefinable change had
come over her. In one sense it was a happy one, since she had