so well defined; and if the round was small, that only
meant that there was no room in it for borderlands and other obscure and
undesirable places. The commercial world, so terrifying in its
approaches, remained, and always would remain, outside it. Sitting in
Mrs. Eliott's drawing-room she forgot that the soul of Scale on Humber
was given over to tallow, and to timber, and Dutch cheeses. But for her
constant habit of depreciation, she could almost have forgotten that her
husband was only a ship-owner, and a ship-owner who had gone into a
horrible partnership with Lawson Hannay. It appeased her to belittle him
by comparisons. He had no spiritual fineness and fire like Canon Wharton,
no intellectual interests like Mr. Eliott and Dr. Gardner. She had long
ago noticed his inability to converse with any brilliance; she was now
aware of the heaviness, the physical slowness, that was growing on him.
He was losing the personal distinction that had charmed her once, and
made her proud to be seen with him at gatherings of the fastidious in
Thurston Square.

Her fancy, still belittling him, ranked him now with the dull business
men of Scale. In a few years, she said, he will be like Lawson Hannay.

A change was coming over her. She was no longer apathetic. Now that she
saw less of her husband she thought more frequently of him, if only to
his disparagement. At times the process was unconscious; at times, when
she caught her thoughts dealing thus uncharitably with him, she was
touched by a pang of contrition and of shame. At times she was pulled up
in her thinking with a sudden shock. She said to herself that he used to
be so different, and her heart would turn gently to the man he used to
be. Then, as in the sad days of her bridal home-coming, the dear immortal
memory of him rose up before her, and pleaded mercy for the insufferably
mortal man. She saw him, with the body and the soul that had been once so
familiar to her, slender, alert, and strong, a creature of appealing
goodness and tenderness and charm. And she was troubled with a great
longing for the presence of the thing she had so loved. She yearned even
for signs of the old brilliant, startling personality, in face of the
growing dulness that she saw. She found herself recalling with a smile
sayings of his that had once vexed and now amused her. For Anne was
softer.

At times she was aware of a new source of uneasiness. She was accustomed
to judge all things in relati