a vision of a Golden House--all gold wouldn't be
too good, and he will build it, damme, for Edith and the boy. The next
morning not even the foundations of this structure were visible. The
master of the house came down to a late breakfast, out of sorts with
life, almost surly. Not even Edith's bright face and fresh toilet and
radiant welcome appealed to him. No one would have thought from her
appearance that she had waited for him last night hour after hour, and
had at last gone to bed with a heavy heart, and not to sleep-to toss,
and listen, and suffer a thousand tortures of suspense. How many
tragedies of this sort are there nightly in the metropolis, none the
less tragic because they are subjects of jest in the comic papers and on
the stage! What would be the condition of social life if women ceased
to be anxious in this regard, and let loose the reins in an easy-going
indifference? What, in fact, is the condition in those households where
the wives do not care? One can even perceive a tender sort of loyalty to
women in the ejaculation of that battered old veteran, the Major, "Thank
God, there's nobody sitting up for me!"

Jack was not consciously rude. He even asked about the baby. And he
sipped his coffee and glanced over the morning journal, and he referred
to the conversation of the night before, and said that he would look
after the purchase at once. If Edith had put on an aspect of injury, and
had intimated that she had hoped that his first evening at home might
have been devoted to her and the boy, there might have been a scene,
for Jack needed only an occasion to vent his discontent. And for the
chronicler of social life a scene is so much easier to deal with, an
outburst of temper and sharp language, of accusation and recrimination,
than the well-bred commonplace of an undefined estrangement.

And yet estrangement is almost too strong a word to use in Jack's case.
He would have been the first to resent it. But the truth was that Edith,
in the life he was leading, was a rebuke to him; her very purity
and unworldliness were out of accord with his associations, with his
ventures, with his dissipations in that smart and glittering circle
where he was more welcome the more he lowered his moral standards. Could
he help it if after the first hours of his return he felt the
restraint of his home, and that the life seemed a little flat? Almost
unconsciously to himself, his interests and his inclinations were
elsewh