ke up
to him in personal affection what she had apparently compelled him to
suffer for policy's sake. Eugene did not know that in Angela, despite
her smallness of body and what seemed to him her babyishness of spirit,
he had to deal with a thinking woman who was quite wise as to ways and
means of handling her personal affairs. She was, of course, whirled in
the maelstrom of her affection for Eugene and this was confusing, and
she did not understand the emotional and philosophic reaches of his
mind; but she did understand instinctively what made for a stable
relationship between husband and wife and between any married couple and
the world. To her the utterance of the marriage vow meant just what it
said, that they would cleave each to the other; there should be
henceforth no thoughts, feelings, or emotions, and decidedly no actions
which would not conform with the letter and the spirit of the marriage
vow.

Eugene had sensed something of this, but not accurately or completely.
He did not correctly estimate either the courage or the rigidity of her
beliefs and convictions. He thought that her character might possibly
partake of some of his own easy tolerance and good nature. She must know
that people--men particularly--were more or less unstable in their
make-up. Life could not be governed by hard and fast rules. Why,
everybody knew that. You might try, and should hold yourself in check as
much as possible for the sake of self-preservation and social
appearances, but if you erred--and you might easily--it was no crime.
Certainly it was no crime to look at another woman longingly. If you
went astray, overbalanced by your desires, wasn't it after all in the
scheme of things? Did we make our desires? Certainly we did not, and if
we did not succeed completely in controlling them--well--

The drift of life into which they now settled was interesting enough,
though for Eugene it was complicated with the thought of possible
failure, for he was, as might well be expected of such a temperament, of
a worrying nature, and inclined, in his hours of ordinary effort, to
look on the dark side of things. The fact that he had married Angela
against his will, the fact that he had no definite art connections which
produced him as yet anything more than two thousand dollars a year, the
fact that he had assumed financial obligations which doubled the cost of
food, clothing, entertainment, and rent--for their studio was costing
him thirty d