All this Halo marked with the lucid second sight of married experience. As long as she had continued to be fond of her husband she had seen him incompletely and confusedly; but under the X ray of her settled indifference every muscle and articulation had become visible. At times she was almost frightened by the accuracy with which she could calculate the movements of his mind and plot out his inevitable course of action. Because really she no longer cared to do so… . She would have been glad enough to impart the unneeded gift to Mrs. Pulsifer; and one day when Mrs. Spear, after various tentative approaches, had put a maternal arm about her and asked ever so gently: "Darling, has it never occurred to you that Lewis is being seen about rather too much with Jet Pulsifer?" Halo had burst into hysterical laughter, and caught her bewildered parent to her bosom… .

But no. There was no escape that way. Lewis still needed her, and she knew it. Mrs. Pulsifer ministered to his thirsting egotism, but Halo managed his life for him, and that was even more important. Some day, perhaps … But she shook off the insinuating vision. Penny by penny, hour by hour, she was still paying back the debt she had assumed when she found out that, all through his courtship, her family had been secretly and shamelessly borrowing from him. And since then the debt had gone on increasing much faster than she could possibly reduce it. The comfort he had given to Mr. and Mrs. Spear since he had become their son-in-law, the peace and security assured to them by his lavish allowance—how many years of wifely devotion and fidelity would it take to wipe out such a score?

Musing fruitlessly on these things she sat alone, waiting for her husband to join her and go in to dinner. She had refused several invitations for that evening, thinking that Lewis would probably dine out (as he did nowadays on most nights), and hoping rather absurdly that Vance Weston might come in and see her… .

The poor boy must have calmed down by this time; it would be safe to see him; and she was eager to hear more of the novel. Her sympathy with him, she told herself again and again, was all intellectual; she was passionately in love with his mind. It was a pity that he had not understood this; had tried to mix up "the other thing" with their intellectual ardours. And yet—no, certainly, she did not want him to make love to her; but would it not have mortified her to be treated forever like a disembodied intelligence? She had to confess to herself that she could not wish undone that foolish scene of the other evening … that the incident in it she most obstinately remembered was his despairing boy's cry: "I want to kiss you… ."