"I don't know that I ought to say it," she remarked, "but I can't help
feeling that Ninitta is not so fond of her husband as she used to be.
Of course I may be mistaken, but either I overestimated her devotion
before they were married, or she cares less for him now."

An expression of pain contracted Helen's brow.

"Isn't it possible," she suggested, "that her being more demonstrative
in her love for the boy makes her seem cold toward her husband?"

"No," returned Edith, shaking her head, "it is more than that. I fancy
sometimes that she unconsciously expected to be somehow transformed
into his equal by marrying him; and that the disappointment of being no
more on a level with him when she became his wife than before, has made
her somehow give him up, as if she concluded that she could never
really belong to his life. Of course I don't mean," she added, "that
Ninitta would reason this out, and very likely I am all wrong, anyway,
but certainly something of this kind has happened."

"Poor Ninitta," repeated Helen, "fate hasn't been kind to her."

"But Mr. Herman?" Edith returned. "What do you say of him? I think his
case is far harder. What a mistake his marriage was. I cannot conceive
how he was ever betrayed into such a _mesalliance_. She cannot be a
companion to him; she does not understand him: she is only a child who
has to be borne with, and who tries his patience and his endurance."

Edith had forgotten her husband's suggestion that her companion was
responsible for Grant Herman's marriage; but Helen, who for six years
had been questioning with herself whether she had done well in urging