r
once had Marise had a moment of that backward-looking hankering for more
money that turned so many women into pillars of salt and their husbands
into legalized sneak-thieves.

He pulled out some of the letters from Canada about the Powers case, and
fingered them over a little. He had brought them home this evening, and
it wasn't the first time either, to try to get a good hour alone with
Marise to talk it over with her. He frowned as he reflected that he
seemed to have had mighty little chance for talking anything over with
Marise since his return. There always seemed to be somebody sticking
around; one of the two men next door, who didn't have anything to do
_but_ stick around, or Eugenia, who appeared to have settled down
entirely on them this time. Well, perhaps it was just as well to wait a
little longer and say nothing about it, till he had those last final
verifications in his hands.

What in thunder did Eugenia come to visit them for, anyhow? Their way of
life must make her sick. Why did she bother? Oh, probably her old
affection for Marise. They had been girls together, of course, and
Marise had been good to her. Women thought more of those old-time
relations than men. Well, he could stand Eugenia if she could stand
them, he guessed. But she wasn't one who grew on him with the years.

He had less and less patience with those fussy little ways, found less
and less amusing those frequent, small cat-like gestures of hers,
picking off an invisible thread from her sleeve, rolling it up to an
invisible ball between her white finger and thumb, and casting it
delicately away; or settling a ring, or brushing off invisible dust with
a flick of a polished finger-nail; all these manoeuvers executed with
such leisure and easy deliberation that they didn't make her seem
restless, and you knew she calculated that effect. A man who had had
years with a real, living woman like Marise, didn't know whether to
laugh or swear at such mannerisms and the self-consciousness that
underlay them.

There she was coming down the stairs now, when she heard Marise at the
piano, with the children, and knew there was no more work to be done.
Pshaw! He had meant to go out and join the others, but now he would wait
a while, till he had finished his pipe. A pipe beside Eugenia's perfumed
cigarettes always seemed so gross. And he wanted to lounge at his ease,
stretch out in his arm-chair with his feet on another. Could you do
that, with Euge