In the evening after dinner they sat before the fire in the parlor. Helen wore a dark dress, plain, durable, unbecoming. He considered this dress, the woman in it, with a coolly impartial eye. His heart failed him. He doubted if she could pull it off if she would. If, for example, she could be made to realize the importance of dressing handsomely and extravagantly every day. If she could be induced to live the life she would have to live. He admitted it was a sort of puppet existence. But as necessary to his success as the dummies in a shop window are to advertise the owner’s trade. Ten thousand women did it all the time, liked it. Still Helen was not one of them. She was removed by nature, every instinct, from that class. He was half a mind to give up the whole thing. At this moment, Helen looked across at him. There was a hint of tears in her eyes, a fugitive smile on her lips as if this smile pleaded with him for a certain forgiveness. He laughed. He stood up and took her in his arms. “Am I all right now, George?” she asked, as if she had been shriven by this embrace. “Absolutely,” he assured her. They sat down. Helen sighed, being now full of that sad peace which makes sighs. “The trouble with you is, dear, that you are never wrong. That cuts you out of life. We who are in the thick of it must be a little wrong,” he explained. “I suppose so,” she agreed. “Not so rigid. We can’t be,” he said. She agreed to that also. “If you could be a little less perfect, it would help me a lot.” She smiled, implying that in that case she was in a position to help him. But what could she do? She had often felt how little service she was. Her meekness intrigued him. “How would you like to live in New York?” he asked. “I would not like it,” she answered after a pause. He might have known what her answer would be, Cutter reflected bitterly. His face reddened. His anger was rising. “Why? Do you want to live there?” she asked, feeling this silence directed against her. “Oh, it makes no difference what I want, because if we lived on separate planets you could not differ more widely than you do from my way of life and my desires, my very needs,” he exclaimed. This was unjust, she knew. Still she felt guilty. “George, I can’t pretend that I should like to live in New York, but if you want to go there, I will go. I must not stand ever in the way of your success.” He sat in brooding, bitter silence, staring into the fire. “We might live very quietly; at least I could, couldn’t I?” she asked timidly, ready to make every other concession.