Most of this publicity was over by the time Bob reached New York, though the echoes still rumbled through the press. His own arrival reawakened some of it, offering opportunities that were never ignored of drawing dramatic contrasts. He was represented as having been "born in the purple," and stooping to a "maiden of low degree." Low degree was poetically fused with the occupation of a model, and by one publication the statement was thrown in, without comment, and as it were accidentally, that the present Mrs. Robert Bradley Collingham, Junior, of Marillo Park, had been greatly admired by appreciative connoisseurs as the figure in Hubert Wray’s already famous picture, "Life and Death." Hubert Wray was even credited with "discovering" this beauty when she was starving in the slums. Except for the detail of Wray’s picture, the publicity was something of a relief to Bob, since it left him nothing to explain. The truth in these many reports being tolerably easy to disengage, his friends and acquaintances knew of his position, and, in view of its circumstances, they respected it. He went to the bank; he went to his club; he passed the time of day with such neighbors as remained at Marillo Park, finding it the easier to come and go because everyone knew what had happened. From almost the first day he fell into a routine—the bank, Stenhouse, Teddy, Indiana Avenue. Though he was not yet working at the bank, he felt it wise to show himself daily on the premises, in order to establish the fact that his relations with his family were unchanged. Stenhouse he didn’t visit every day, but only when there were matters connected with the case to talk over. He saw Teddy as often as the Brig regulations would allow, growing more and more touched by the eagerness with which the boy welcomed him. In Indiana Avenue he was assiduous. Whatever the hints flung out by Addie Inglis and Samuella Weatherby, they received contradiction as far as that was possible from obvious devotion. As for his personal relations with Jennie, they changed little from the _modus vivendi_ agreed upon. That she was growing more and more grateful was evident, but gratitude wasn’t what he wanted. What he wanted he himself didn’t know, and, in a measure, he didn’t care. Till she got what she wanted, he could never be wholly satisfied; and if she wanted Wray.... But at this point his reasoning faculties failed him. If she wanted Wray and if Wray wanted her, there would, of course, be but one thing for him to do. It was that one thing itself which remained elusive or obscure, dodging, disturbing, and defying him. He could find a means to give Jennie her freedom, or he could take her by brute force, or, in certain circumstances, he could dismiss her as not worthy of his love. The trouble was that he couldn’t see himself doing any of the three; and yet if what seemed to be true was true, he couldn’t see himself as doing the other thing.