pretty clear statement of fact. Bland certainly seemed above working
either for money or to secure a reasonable degree of comfort for
himself and his wife. He sat waiting for a windfall to restore his
past splendor of existence, which he sometimes indirectly admitted
meant cricket, a country home, horses and dogs, a whirl among the
right sort of people in London now and then. That sort of thing and
that sort of man was what Myra had fallen in love with. Hollister felt
a mild touch of contempt for them both.

His wife had also let her thoughts focus on the Blands.

"I wonder," she said, "if they are so very poor? Why don't you offer
Bland a job? Maybe he is too proud to ask."

Bland was not too proud to ask for certain things, it seemed. About a
week later he came to Hollister and in a most casual manner said, "I
say, old man, can you let me have a hundred dollars? My quarterly
funds are delayed a bit."

Hollister gave him the money without question. As he watched Bland
stride away through the light blanket of snow, and a little later
noticed him disappear among the thickets and stumps going towards the
Carr camp, where supplies were sold as a matter of accommodation
rather than for profit, Hollister reflected that there was a mild sort
of irony in the transaction. He wondered if Myra knew of her husband's
borrowing. If she had any inkling of the truth, how would she feel?
For he knew that Myra was proud, sensitive, independent in spirit far
beyond her capacity for actual independence. If she even suspected his
identity, the borrowing of that money would surely sting her. But
Hollister put that notion aside.

For a long time Myra had ceased to trouble him with the irritating
uncertainty of their first meetings. She apparently accepted him and
his mutilated face as part of Doris Hollister's background and gave
him no more thought or attention. Always in the little gatherings at
his house Hollister contrived to keep in the shadow, to be an onlooker
rather than a participant,--just as Charlie Mills did. Hollister was
still sensitive about his face. He was doubly sensitive because he
dreaded any comment upon his disfigurement reaching his wife's ears.
He had succeeded so well in thus effacing himself that Myra seemed to
regard him as if he were no more than a grotesque bit of furniture to
which she had become accustomed. All the sense of sinister
possibilities in her presence, all that uneasy dread of her nearness,
t