ves and comic
papers men knelt and that sort of thing. She felt she had been cheated
rather of Romance.

As things were, with her so ignorant and Mother like that, it was all a
little of a worry.

But it was also a way out....

CHAPTER IV

HYMEN

If Hubert had known how difficult a job it was to get married, he would
never have attempted it. Or so at least he told himself. All Boyd's
advice, all his own misgivings about lonely age, all Ruth's scenes,
would not have driven him to so much real hard work that had no
definite connection with his mapped and beloved life-career.

He always had imagined that the thing took half an hour, and even then
was managed by some luckless friend you roped in as best man. And here
he was, worried all day about presents, relatives, guests, leases,
settlements, and heaven itself even probably could not say what else,
till he despaired about his autumn work.

Ruth, in particular, drove him almost frantic.

He was absolutely certain she loathed his marrying, and yet to judge
from the outside, nothing in the whole world could have pleased her
more than making the arrangements. She would talk for forty minutes
about buying six new pairs of socks. Her air of Willing Service
maddened him. When she had nothing else to do, she would divide her
time between telling him that he was a cold lover and assuring him that
there was no need whatsoever to worry about her. _She_ would be all
right. He mustn't think of _her_....

"I don't," he would hurl back at length, firmly convinced of her
hypocrisy (he was a great believer in his intuitions), at which point
she usually cried. Then he would go out and shake the pictures crooked
by slamming the door. At their next meeting, all forgiveness, Ruth
would take up again the subject of those socks.

Finally he abandoned all idea of finishing his novel. This would be
the first blank autumn since he started writing. He felt cross with
Fate.

In all this, romanticists will no doubt be gratified to hear, Helena
was the sole consolation.

He was pleased with her--and he was pleased with his own cleverness in
having lit upon her. If marriage was essential to him, he felt sure
she was just the very girl to be a wife who wouldn't get upon his
nerves. The more he saw of her, the more he liked her; and that, too,
was encouraging. She had, of course, come up to London with her
mother, no less busy than himself, and her delight with the