rt was shattered
little by little. The first night at the hotel at Nice left him pondering.
It wasn't due to the fact that Angela occupied a separate room, but that
he heard her _turn the key in the lock_! He sat up half the night
"browsing" on that singular occurrence. The second night, and every night
after, the same thing happened. Nothing else was needed to send him into
fits of inward rage. Not for all the wealth of the Indies would he have
touched the handle of that door! Verily he was learning. Each day drove
home the lesson, until he writhed under the lash of it. He had married an
iceberg.

He found himself very much alone. In Nice Angela met scores of familiar
faces. She spent most of her time with these friends, leaving Jim to the
terrible naked truth--to wrestle with it as best he might. He had kissed
her at Little Badholme, had apparently thawed for ever the chilly heart of
her. But here it was again--the frigid exterior that no kisses could melt.
What had happened to her? Was it that she had never cared at all--that her
acceptance of his marriage offer was dictated by ulterior motives?

Before it was time for them to return to England the last scrap of
illusion was knocked out of him. More miserable than ever he had been in
his life, he sought for some solution. It was so obvious she didn't care
for him. He saw that, in the company of her "high-browed" friends, she
despised him. He found himself sitting down under this contempt--meekly
accepting the role of enslaved husband, hand-servant to a beautiful and
presumably soulless woman.

On the night before they left she came back to the hotel very late, to
find him sitting in a brown study. He watched her, furtively, discarding
the expensive cloak, and taking off the heavy pearl necklace he had been
fool enough to buy. He stood up and stared for a moment, in silence, out
over the moonlit sea. When he turned she was going to her room.

"Angela!"

She stopped, not liking the imperative note in his voice.

"What's wrong?"

"Wrong?"

"Yep--with us?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I wasn't aware that anything was wrong."

He leaned across the table.

"Angela. Why did you marry me?"

"Because you asked me."

"No other reason, eh?"

"Isn't that reason enough?"

His mouth set in a grim smile.

"I thought that when wimmen married men there was usually another reason.
To take a man and not to tell him the truth ain't 'xactly on the level."

"Don