it was not his carpet; and he swore to
himself to possess that very carpet or its indistinguishable brother.

"I was a most frightful ass to leave that letter lying about!" he
exclaimed.

"Oh! George!" she protested lovingly. "It could so easily happen--a
thing like that could. It was just bad luck."

A cushion! The divinest down cushion! That was what she was! She was
more. She defended a man against himself. She restored him to
perfection. Her affectionate faith was a magical inspiration to him; it
was, really, the greatest force in the world. Most women would have
agreed with him, however tactfully, that he had been careless about the
letter. An Adela would certainly have berated him in her shrewish, thin
tones. A Lois would have been sarcastic, scornfully patronizing him as a
'boy.' And what would Agg have done?... They might have forgiven and
even forgotten, but they would have indulged themselves first.
Marguerite was exteriorly simple. She would not perhaps successfully
dominate a drawing-room. She would cut no figure playing with lives at
the wheel of an automobile. After all, she would no doubt be ridiculous
in the costume of Bonnie Prince Charlie. But she was finer than the
other women whose images floated in his mind. And she was worth millions
of them. He was overpowered by the sense of his good fortune in finding
her. He went cold at the thought of what he would have missed if he had
not found her. He would not try to conceive what his existence would be
without her, for it would be unendurable. Of this he was convinced.

"Do you think he'll go talking about it?" George asked, meaning of
course Mr. Haim.

"More likely _she_ will," said Marguerite.

He positively could feel her lips tightening. Futile to put in a word
for Mrs. Haim! When he had described the swoon, Marguerite had shown
neither concern nor curiosity. Not the slightest! Antipathy to her
stepmother had radiated from her almost visibly in the night like the
nimbus round a street lamp. Well, she did not understand; she was
capable of injustice; she was quite wrong about Mrs. Haim. What matter?
Her whole being was centralized on himself. He was aware of his
superiority.

He went on quietly:

"If the old man gets chattering at the office, the Orgreaves will know,
and the next minute the news'll be in the Five Towns. I can't possibly
let my people hear from anybody else of _my engagement_ before they hear
from me. However, if it comes to