he suffered from no
disillusion, with its attendant bitterness. From this he was saved by
the fact, easy at length to recognise, that in wooing Alma he had
obeyed no dictate of the nobler passion; here, too, as at every other
crisis of life, he had acted on motives which would not bear analysis,
so large was the alloy of mere temperament, of weak concession to
circumstance. Rather than complain that Alma fell short of the ideal in
wifehood, should he not marvel, and be grateful that their marriage
might still be called a happy one? Happiness in marriage is a term of
such vague application: Basil Morton, one in ten thousand, might call
himself happy; even so, all things considered, must the husband who
finds it _just_ possible to endure the contiguity of his wife. Midway
between these extremes of the definition stood Harvey's measure of
matrimonial bliss. He saw that he had no right to grumble.

He saw, moreover, and reflected constantly upon it in these days, how
largely he was himself to blame for the peril of estrangement which
threatened his life with Alma. Meaning well, and thinking himself a
pattern of marital wisdom, he had behaved, as usual, with gross lack of
discretion. The question now was, could he mend the harm that he had
done? Love did not enter into the matter; his difficulty called for
common-sense--for rational methods in behaviour towards a wife whom he
could still respect, and who was closely bound to him by common
interest in their child.

He looked up, and had pleasure once more in the sunny sky. After all,
he, even he, had not committed the most woeful of all blunders; though
it was a mystery how he had escaped it. The crown of his feeble, futile
career should, in all fitness, have been marriage with a woman worse
than himself. And not on his own account did he thank protecting
fortune. One lesson, if one only, he had truly learnt from nature: it
bade him forget all personal disquietude, in joy that he was not guilty
of that crime of crimes, the begetting of children by a worthless
mother.

CHAPTER 2

Mrs. Morton felt a lively interest in Mrs. Rolfe's musical enterprise,
and would have liked to talk about it, but she suspected that the topic
was not very agreeable to her guest. In writing to Morton, Harvey had
just mentioned the matter, and that was all. On the second day of his
visit, when he felt much better, and saw things in a less troubled
light, he wished to remove the impression