, "that the president of a trust company can afford to
live in a better house than the junior partner of Dallam and Spence."

"The president of a trust company!" Honora scarcely recognized her own
voice--so distant it sounded. The room rocked, and she clutched the arm
of a chair and sat down. He came and stood over her.

"I thought that would surprise you some," he said, obviously pleased by
these symptoms. "The fact is, I hadn't meant to break it to you until
morning. But I think I'll go in on the seven thirty-five." (He glanced
significantly up at the ceiling, as though Mrs. Holt had something to
do with this decision.) "President of the Orange Trust Company at forty
isn't so bad, eh?"

"The Orange Trust Company? Did you say the Orange Trust Company?"

"Yes." He produced a cigarette. "Old James Wing and Brent practically
control it. You see, if I do say it myself, I handled some things pretty
well for Brent this summer, and he's seemed to appreciate it. He and
Wing were buying in traction stocks out West. But you could have knocked
me down with a paper-knife when he came to me--"

"When did he come to you?" she asked breathlessly.

"Yesterday. We went down town together, you remember, and he asked me
to step into his office. Well, we talked it over, and I left on the one
o'clock for Newport to see Mr. Wing. Wonderful old man! I sat up with
him till midnight--it wasn't any picnic"...

More than once during the night Honora awoke with a sense of oppression,
and each time went painfully through the whole episode from the
evening--some weeks past when Trixton Brent had first mentioned the
subject of the trust company, to the occurrence in the automobile and
Howard's triumphant announcement. She had but a vague notion of how that
scene had finished; or of how, limply, she had got to bed. Round and
round the circle she went in each waking period. To have implored him
to relinquish the place had been waste of breath; and then--her reasons?
These were the moments when the current was strongest, when she grew
incandescent with humiliation and pain; when stray phrases in red
letters of Brent's were illuminated. Merit! He had a contempt for her
husband which he had not taken the trouble to hide. But not a business
contempt. "As good as the next man," Brent had said--or words to that
effect. "As good as the next man!" Then she had tacitly agreed to the
bargain, and refused to honour the bill! No, she had not, she had not.