The extent of their borrowings (discovered suddenly, at the precise moment when she had decided to break her engagement) had in fact been the direct cause of Halo's marriage. Tarrant had stepped into the breach more often than she had guessed; had not only bought back the books so mysteriously lost from the Willows, but had helped Lorry Spear to start as a theatrical decorator, besides filling in the ever-widening gap in the Spear budget. And he had done it all so quietly that when the facts became known to Halo her first movement of exasperation was followed by an unexpected feeling of admiration. If he were like that, she thought, she ought to be able to love him; at any rate, she knew she could never willingly cause him any pain. And on this basis they were married… .

The years that followed had represented the interest on her husband's advances. He was far too much of a gentleman to let her feel that she, or any of hers, was in his debt; but there the fact loomed, the more oppressively because of his studied ignoring of it. She had gradually found out that it had not altered his real nature; but it had imposed on her the obligation to view him always in the light of an accidental magnanimity. It was dreadful, she thought in her rebellious moods, to know exactly what one would have to think of one's husband till one's dying day. But these rebellions were rare with her. Every morning she told herself anew that he had been incredibly generous to her people, and that the only return she could make was to throw herself with ardour into every new scheme which attracted, and reject with promptitude any enterprise which ceased to please him. Some day, perhaps, he would find his line—and then people would see, then even Frenside would have to confess …