But in this selfish dependency on her company there remained little of the eager gladness in each other, the perfect understanding of happier days. Pamela was sensible of the difference, though she tried to ignore it. It was, she felt largely her own fault. In the difficult time following her enlightenment she had lost her influence over Arnott; had allowed the power she had possessed to slip away from her in her timid shrinking from ugly realities, and her newly acquired distrust of himself. She had strained his love and patience often in those days, and she was reaping the result now. These things troubled her no longer to the extent they once had done. She was becoming reconciled to the changes in her life. Although she strove to fight against an increasing indifference in her own feeling towards him, she knew that her love was not as perfect as it had been: it had gone down under the shock, and come out of the wreckage of her happiness a crippled thing. When Pamela allowed her mind to dwell on these matters she became frightened. It was terrifying to contemplate what might result if they ceased finally to care for one another. Life together in such circumstances would become unendurable. Plenty of people lived together who were mutually antipathetic, but not in the dishonoured relations of her union with Arnott. A real love alone offered any extenuation--if extenuation could be urged--in defence of their sin against society. She dared not admit a doubt of her loyal devotion, dared not cease to struggle to retain Herbert's affection. Her life became an endless fight to keep alive the shrunken image of the old love. A love which needs constant tending and guarding and encouraging is a difficult plant to keep flourishing: when one is compelled to resort to artificial stimulus it is a proof that the nature has gone out of it. Pamela had at one time regarded the Carruthers' married life as a rather prosy affair; now she was inclined to envy the humdrum content of this eminently well-mated couple. If there was not much actual romance in Connie Carruthers' life, there was solid satisfaction and entire trust. She and Dick Carruthers had been comrades rather than lovers, and they remained comrades still. "Don't you think," Pamela observed to her one day, when she came in to see her godson, and take tea, as she often did, with the children, "that babies make a big difference? ... They seem to come between the parents... They make a break. I suppose it's because they claim so much of one's time and attention." "Yours don't get it, whatever they may claim," Mrs Carruthers answered. "And children are the only decent excuse for marriage. I wish I had a dozen."