e bedtime in the rites of cold cream, massage, and in placing the
little combs of what Leslie had learned was called a water-wave.

But her judgment was as clear as his, and even more pitiless; the
difference between them lay in the fact that while he rebelled, she
accepted the situation. She was cleverer than he was; her mind worked
more quickly, and she had the adaptability he lacked. If there were
times when she wearied him, there were others when he sickened her.
Across from her at the table he ate slowly and enormously. He splashed
her dainty bathroom with his loud, gasping cold baths. He flung his
soiled clothing anywhere. He drank whisky at night and crawled into the
lavender-scented sheets redolent of it, to drop into a heavy sleep and
snore until she wanted to scream. But she played the game to the limit
of her ability.

Then, seeing that they might go on the rocks, he made a valiant effort,
and since she recognized it as an effort, she tried to meet him half
way. They played two-handed card games. He read aloud to her, poetry
which she loathed, and she to him, short stories he hated. He suggested
country walks and she agreed, to limp back after a half mile or so in
her high-heeled pumps.

He concealed his boredom from her, but there were nights when he lay
awake long after she was asleep and looked ahead into a future of
unnumbered blank evenings. He had formerly taken an occasional evening
at his club, but on his suggesting it now Nina's eyes would fill
with suspicion, and he knew that although she never mentioned Beverly
Carlysle, she would neither forget nor entirely trust him again. And in
his inner secret soul he knew that she was right.

He had thought that he had buried that brief madness, but there
were times when he knew he lied to himself. One fiction, however, he
persisted in; he had not been infatuated with Beverly. It was only that
she gave him during those few days something he had not found at home,
companionship and quiet intelligent talk. She had been restful. Nina was
never restful.

He bought a New York paper daily, and read it in the train. "The Valley"
had opened to success in New York, and had settled for a long run. The
reviews of her work had been extraordinary, and when now and then she
gave an interview he studied the photographs accompanying it. But he
never carried the paper home.

He began, however, to play with the thought of going to New York. He
would not go to see her at