He had shown her that he understood by going to the friends for whom he was good enough, who were good enough for him. He went more than ever now, sometimes to the Ransomes, oftener to Gorst, oftenest of all to Lawson Hannay. He liked more than ever to sit with Mrs. Hannay; to lean up against the everlasting soft cushion she presented to his soreness. More than ever he liked to talk to her of simple things; of their acquaintance; of Edith, who had been a little better, certainly no worse, this summer; of Peggy, of Peggy's future and her education. He would sit for hours on Mrs. Hannay's sofa, his body leaning back, his head bowed forward, his chin sunk on his breast, listening attentively, yet with a dazed and rather stupid expression, to Mrs. Hannay's conversation. His own was sometimes monotonous and a little dull. He was growing even physically heavy. But Mrs. Hannay did not seem to mind. There was a certain justice in Anne's justification. He didn't consciously prefer the Hannays' society to hers; but he actually found it more agreeable, and for the reasons she suspected. They did worship him; and their worship did make him feel superior, perhaps when he was least so. They did flatter him; for, as Mrs. Hannay said, "He needed a little patting on the back, now and then, poor fellow." And perhaps he was really sinking a little to her level; he had so lost his sense of her vulgarity. He used to wonder how it was that she had kept Lawson straight. Perfectly straight, Lawson had been, ever since his marriage. Possibly, probably, if he had married a wife too inflexibly refined, he would have deviated somewhat from that perfect straightness. His tastes had always been a little vulgar. But there was no reason why he should go abroad to gratify them when he possessed the paragon of amenable vulgarity at home. The Gardners, whose union was almost miraculously complete, were not in their way more admirably mated. And Lawson's reform must have been a stiff job for any woman to tackle at the start. A woman of marvellous ingenuity and tact. For she had kept Lawson straight without his knowing it. She had played off one of Lawson's little weaknesses against the other; had set, for instance, his fantastic love of eating against his sordid little tendency to drink. Lawson was now a model of sobriety. And as she kept Lawson straight without his knowing it, she helped Majendie, too, without his knowing it, to hold his miserable head up. She ignored, resolutely, his attitude of dejection. She reminded him that if he could make nothing else out of his life he could make money. She convinced him that life, the life of a prosperous ship-owner in Scale, was worth living, as long as he had Edith and Anne and Peggy to make money for, especially Peggy. And Majendie became more and more absorbed in his business, and more and more he found his pleasure in it; in making money, that is to say, for the persons whom he loved.