"Well, she swallowed me so magnificently in the first place that I felt I had to help to bolster up her attitude. It would be rather pathetic really, if she knew we understood her so well. She is a person who needs to be wrapped in the illusion of success." "It's kind of you to feel like that, I think, though it would kill her to realise that you knew so much about her that you were simply being decent to her." "Anyhow it's only a few more weeks now." "Six weeks and three days, my dearest, and after that we won't see much of them and everything will go quite smoothly." "Oh, no, it won't, Geoffrey," Helen's eyes flickered dangerously, "it won't go the least smoothly, it will be up and down like a very rough crossing, but perfectly lovely all the same." "Dear heart, I'm sure of that; if only I can keep you happy." "You needn't have any doubts, Geoffrey. I'm perfectly certain that fundamentally we're right for each other." The next few years proved the truth of Helen's words. Their honeymoon was exhausting, awkward, and ecstatic but not, they decided, more exhausting and awkward than other people's honeymoons, and on the other hand, certainly more ecstatic. "It's odd how you stimulate me mentally," said Helen a little while after they got home to the house in Cheyne Walk which Mrs. Rodney so often referred as "very bright of course, but rather too bizarre for my taste." "I don't think it is odd," contradicted Geoffrey, "ever since we met we've acted as mutual goads to each other." "Yes I know," Helen answered impatiently, "but it was different before we were married. Really you know, I didn't do any decent work between getting to know you and now. You remember that poster I was so pleased with? Well it's quite awful. I was on the wrong tack altogether but now I do know what I'm about, I entirely understand about the unity of angles." "You don't suggest, do you, that I'm responsible for enlarging your comprehension of angles?" asked Geoffrey laughing. "No of course not; you hadn't anything to do with it. I only mean that I'm very clear and free in my mind just now, and that is partly because of you. You don't hinder me at all, you help me." "I'm glad," said Geoffrey, "keep free if you can; there's no need to get in a mess with things." "I certainly won't." Helen was emphatic. "I know your wretched aunt and all sorts of people expect to be asked here just because I'm newly married and have a new house, but I simply won't do it. And I'm not going to pay any calls either." "I don't want you to do things like that. Lavinia does it plenty enough for one family, and Hugh's wife, when he has one, is sure to be a model of propriety. But I want you to go on being Helen Guest even if you are Mrs. Geoffrey Greene. Don't fuss about my family." "You do understand remarkably well, Geoffrey. I'd have to go my own way in any case, but I'm terribly glad you're with me in my policy of being ruthless."