Theresa, once the matter of husband-getting was safely settled, had no restraint of prudence upon her self-complacence. She "let herself go" completely, with results upon her character, her mind, and her personal appearance that were depressing enough to the casual beholder, but appalling to those who were in her intimacy of the home. Ross watched her deteriorate in gloomy and unreproving silence. She got herself together sufficiently for as good public appearance as a person of her wealth and position needed to make, he reasoned; what did it matter how she looked and talked at home where, after all, the only person she could hope to please was herself? He held aloof, drawn from his aloofness occasionally by her whim to indulge herself in what she regarded as proofs of his love. Her pouting, her whimpering, her abject but meaningless self-depreciation, her tears, were potent, not for the flattering reason she assigned, but because he, out of pity for her and self-reproach, and dread of her developing her mother's weakness, would lash himself into the small show of tenderness sufficient to satisfy her. And now, steeped in the gall of as bitter a draught as experience forces folly to drink anew each day to the dregs--the realization that, though the man marries the money only, he lives with the wife only--Ross had met Adelaide again. "I'll go to Chicago in the morning," was his conclusion. "I'll do the honorable thing"--he sneered at himself--"since trying the other would only result in her laughing at me and in my being still more miserable."