. Usually he telephoned at the last minute, saying he had a
business dinner to go to or a directors' meeting to attend. It was
seldom that she could count on his company, and it made her life
necessarily seem very lonely. It was nice to be rich, but often she
wished that they might be poorer, that Robert were less successful so
that their life might be more domesticated, more intimate. She felt
that even after two years of marriage she did not know her husband any
better than when she first met him. There seemed to be between them an
indefinable yet very real barrier which, for some unknown reason, she
was impotent to tear down. Sometimes, too, she resented him making so
little of her. Instead of taking her into his confidence in his
business matters, he treated her as a child, whose opinion on serious
things was valueless. Instead of coming to her as a comrade to ask
advice, he preferred to play the ardent lover, as if that were all he
expected of her. Her womanhood rebelled, but she said nothing. There
were times, too, when he returned home very late, exhilarated by too
much wine, and on such occasions his boisterous, passionate kisses
nauseated her. Often she found herself longing for demonstrations of a
more sincere and honest affection, but she always excused him on the
ground that it was the fault of his temperament.

Among all her husband's friends Fred Hadley was the one whose society
she preferred. She found him sympathetic, kind and yet always
respectful. He being very fond of music and having considerable
literary taste, they soon found that they had many interests in
common. Sometimes he would join them in their box at the opera, or
when Stafford brought him home to dinner they sat and chatted on all
kinds of congenial topics while the husband, wholly absorbed in the
business details of a busy day, paid only scant attention to the
conversation.

One evening the subject of divorce happened to come up. They were
discussing the notorious case of a well-known woman in society who had
submitted to all kinds of cruelties and indignities on the part of her
husband rather than shame him by bringing the matter into court.
Stafford, for once becoming interested in the argument, declared
decisively that the woman was right, that, having entered into a
matrimonial compact, she was in honor bound to conceal from prying
outsiders any domestic differences they might have. Virginia promptly
differed with him and proceeded