Nellie, he might not have deteriorated?

Were Alice Blatchley to marry an artist could she be sure that at
forty she would still be in sympathy with artistic ideals? Even as a
child had not her desire ever been in the opposite direction to that
favoured by her nurse? Did not the reading of Conservative journals
invariably incline her towards Radicalism, and the steady stream of
Radical talk round her husband's table invariably set her seeking
arguments in favour of the feudal system? Might it not have been her
husband's growing Puritanism that had driven her to crave for
Bohemianism? Suppose that towards middle age, the wife of a wild
artist, she suddenly "took religion," as the saying is. Her last
state would be worse than the first.

Camelford was of delicate physique. As an absent-minded bachelor with
no one to give him his meals, no one to see that his things were
aired, could he have lived till forty? Could he be sure that home
life had not given more to his art than it had taken from it?

Jessica Dearwood, of a nervous, passionate nature, married to a bad
husband, might at forty have posed for one of the Furies. Not until
her life had become restful had her good looks shown themselves. Hers
was the type of beauty that for its development demands tranquillity.

Dick Everett had no delusions concerning himself. That, had he
married Jessica, he could for ten years have remained the faithful
husband of a singularly plain wife he knew to be impossible. But
Jessica would have been no patient Griselda. The extreme probability
was that having married her at twenty for the sake of her beauty at
thirty, at twenty-nine at latest she would have divorced him.