them. Jane was always thinking, 'How can I use this? What can I get out
of it?' She thought it about the war. So did Johnny. She has always
thought it, about everything. It isn't in her not to. And Arthur knew
it, but didn't care; anyhow he loved her all the same. It was as if his
reason and judgment were bowled over by her charm and couldn't help him.

2

The evening after Oliver Hobart's death, Arthur came in to see me,
about nine o'clock. He looked extraordinarily ill and strained, and was
even more restless and jerky than usual. He looked as if he hadn't
slept at all.

I was testing some calculations, and he sat on the sofa and smoked. When
I had finished, he said, 'Katherine, what's your view of this business?'

Of course, I knew he meant Oliver Hobart's death, and how it would affect
Jane. One says exactly what one thinks, to Arthur. So I said, 'It's a
good thing, ultimately, for Jane. They didn't suit. I'm clear it's a good
thing in the end. Aren't you?'

He made a sharp movement, and pushed back his hair from his forehead.

'I? I'm clear of nothing.'

He added, after a moment, 'Is that the way _she_ looks at it, do
you suppose?'

'I do,' I said.

He half winced.

'Then why--why the devil did she marry the poor chap?'

There was an odd sort of appeal in his voice; appeal against the cruelty
of fate, perhaps, or the perverseness of Jane.

I told him what I thought, as clearly as I could.

'She got carried away by the excitement of her life in Paris, and he was
all mixed up with that. I think she felt she would, in a way, be carrying
on the excitement and the life if she married him. And she was knocked
over by his beauty. Then, when the haze and glamour had cleared away, and
she was left face to face with him as a life companion, she found she
couldn't do with him after all. He bored her and annoyed her more and
more. I don't know how long she could have gone on with it; she never
said anything, to me about it. But, now this has happened, what might
have become a great difficulty is solved.'

'Solved,' he repeated, in a curious, dead voice, staring at the floor. 'I
suppose it is.'

He was silent for quite five minutes, sitting quite still, with his black
eyes absent and vacant, as if he were very tired. I knew he was trying to
think out some problem, and I supposed I knew what it was. But I couldn't
account then for his extreme unhappiness.

At last he said, 'Katherine. This is a mess. I can'