She had an idea that it would please Gage, though he had been non-committal when she had broached the idea of having Gregory and his wife for a brief visit. Helen had seen but little of Gage of late. She knew he was working hard and badly worried about money. They had sold a piece of property to raise that thousand for the Macmillans and he had told her definitely of bad times ahead for him. She offered to reduce the expenses of the household and he had agreed in the necessity. They must shave every expense. But it invigorated Helen. She had amends to make to Gage and the more practical the form the easier it was to make them. Neither of them desired to unnecessarily trouble those dark waters of mental conflict now. Helen guessed that Gage’s mind was not on her and that the bad tangle of his business life absorbed him. Brusque, haggard, absorbed, never attempting or apparently needing affection, he came and went. Never since Carpenter’s death had they even discussed the question of separation. That possibility was there. They had beaten a path to it. But hysteria was too thoroughly weeded out of Gage to press toward it. Without mutual reproach they both saw that separation in the immediate future was the last advantageous thing for the work of either of them and flimsy as that foundation seemed for life together, yet it held them. They turned their backs upon what they had lost or given up and looked ahead. Helen heard Gage refer some political question to her for the first time, with a kind of wonder. She suspected irony, then dropped her own self-consciousness as it became apparent that he really did not have any twisted motive behind the query. She began to see that in great measure he had swung loose from her, substituting some new strength for his dependence on her love. And, when some moment of emotional sorrow at the loss of their ardors came over her, she turned as neatly as did he from disturbing thought to the work, which piled in on her by letter and by conference. * * * * * They sat at dinner in the long white-paneled dining-room, twelve men and women. The three Brownleys and young Ted Smillie--Jerrold Haynes because Helen wanted to have him meet Freda and Emily Haight because she fitted in with Jerrold now that Walter Carpenter was gone. To these Helen had added the young Harold Spencers because they were the leaders of that group of young people who made or destroyed gossip. It was a dinner party made up hurriedly on the excuse of Gregory’s celebrity and such little intrigue as was hidden in its inception made it no less a pleasant company.