On the morning after the play was produced, with all the notices before her, Eve had stretched out a hand to him, and said: “You’ve won—absolutely you’ve won. My dear, I am so proud.” “Yes, I’ve made a start. There’s a long way to go yet.” With a chilly sense she felt that he had not said this from any modesty, but rather to delay admitting the success for which they had fought their battle. She was conscious afterwards that he shunned the topic of his success, and kept the conversation on impersonal lines. That glorious moment to which all her hopes had been pinned and all her labours consecrated did not mature into reality. It seemed that he was floating out of her life as a steamship passes a yacht at sea. And so, with the measure of his success, there came about in Eve a corresponding stagnation. It would have been easy then to have engaged a servant to do the housework, to have bought furniture, linen, and the many delightful things she had planned to do; but somehow the inclination to do so had gone. It was preferable to have occupation of some sort, if only to keep her thoughts from brooding on these disappointments. Besides, she took an almost cynical interest in wondering how long he would allow her to remain as a drudge who worked for him with her two hands. Wynne himself was cheerfully indifferent to the trend of her thoughts. He was in excellent spirits, enthusiastic for the present, and full of plans for the future. When “Witches” came to an end he said he proposed to put on a play of his own. Lane Quiltan would supply the capital. “Have you asked him?” said Eve. “Not yet.” “Wouldn’t it be better to do so before being too sure?” He tossed the idea aside with: “Some things one can take for granted. I am as confident of his support as I am confident that at least five young ladies in the company are wondering when I shall invite them to Brighton for the week-end.” With rather an effort, Eve replied: “Only five?” “I said in the company,” he very rapturously retorted. The suggestion of these words struck a peculiar chord of memory in Eve. They recalled very vividly a vulgar little cousin of hers—a boy scarcely out of his teens—who had boasted, with considerable pride, of a liaison with a young lady at a tobacconist’s. It was an unpleasant parallel, but she could not clear it from her mind. Hitherto the physical side of Wynne had been so dormant. She had nursed the shell which held his spirit, and nourished it to a manlier form. As he stood there before speaking she realized that in body he was a man of different fibre, capable of passions not only of the mind. It would be tragic and pitiable if these were to be awakened by the same vulgar instincts which attack the little Lotharios of nineteen. This was the man who had starved for a week to buy a copy of Walter Pater.