Shortly after dinner Cutter took Shippen back to his hotel. They had some affairs to discuss further before he should leave on the early morning train. Cutter explained to Helen, because this was unusual. It was his invariable habit to spend his evenings at home. He was a good husband, according to the strictest law of the scribes and Pharisees, so to speak. What I mean is that he was literally faithful to his wife, though you may have suspected to the contrary. This is not the author’s fault, but due to the evil culturing of your own mind. A man may be faithful to his wife, and at the same time frisk through the night life of a place like New York. He may be doing nothing worse than taking a whiff and an eyeful of the naughty world, getting something to talk about to the other fellows when he comes home. It is silly, but not wicked, as you are inclined to believe. I do not know why it is that so many respectable women are disposed to suspect the worst where men are concerned; but it is a fact which even their pastors will not deny. When Cutter came in that night Helen had retired. He turned on the light. “Asleep, my dear?” he asked. “No,” she replied in that tone a woman has when her voice sounds like the nice, small voice of your conscience. He came and sat down on the side of the bed, regarded her cheerfully, like the messenger of good tidings. She lay very flat, hands folded across her breast, face in repose, no expression, eyes wide open, a state of self-consciousness bordering onto unconsciousness which women sometimes sink into as a sort of last ditch. Cutter was so elated about something he did not observe that his wife was dying momentarily. He wanted to talk. He had something to tell her. “You were splendid to-night, Helen,” he began. She revived sufficiently to ask him if the dinner was “all right.” “Dinner!” he exclaimed. “I scarcely noticed what we had to eat. You took the shine off the dinner. You were stunning. Means a lot to a man for his wife to--make good; sets him up. Shippen was impressed, I can tell you that.” Shippen! She did not speak the name, but her glance, slowly turned on him, meant it. “How did you like him?” he wanted to know. “I did not like him,” she answered distinctly. He stared at her. Her respiration was the same; her eyes coldly impersonal. He sprang to his feet, kicked off his shoes, flung off his clothes, snapped off the light and retired to the bitter frost of that bed. He lay flat, clinched his hands across his breast and worked his toes as if these toes were the claws of a particularly savage beast. His chest rose and fell like bellows. His red brown eyes snapped in the dark.