How fine it had always been of Marise to back him up in that view of the business, not to want him to cheat the umpire, even if he could get away with it, even though it would have meant enough sight more money for them, even though the umpire didn’t exist as yet, except in his own conscience, in his own idea of what he was up to in his business.  Never once had Marise had a moment of that backward-looking hankering for more money that turned so many women into pillars of salt and their husbands into legalized sneak-thieves.

He pulled out some of the letters from Canada about the Powers case, and fingered them over a little.  He had brought them home this evening, and it wasn’t the first time either, to try to get a good hour alone with Marise to talk it over with her.  He frowned as he reflected that he seemed to have had mighty little chance for talking anything over with Marise since his return.  There always seemed to be somebody sticking around; one of the two men next door, who didn’t have anything to do but stick around, or Eugenia, who appeared to have settled down entirely on them this time.  Well, perhaps it was just as well to wait a little longer and say nothing about it, till he had those last final verifications in his hands.

What in thunder did Eugenia come to visit them for, anyhow?  Their way of life must make her sick.  Why did she bother?  Oh, probably her old affection for Marise.  They had been girls together, of course, and Marise had been good to her.  Women thought more of those old-time relations than men.  Well, he could stand Eugenia if she could stand them, he guessed.  But she wasn’t one who grew on him with the years.

He had less and less patience with those fussy little ways, found less and less amusing those frequent, small cat-like gestures of hers, picking off an invisible thread from her sleeve, rolling it up to an invisible ball between her white finger and thumb, and casting it delicately away; or settling a ring, or brushing off invisible dust with a flick of a polished finger-nail; all these manoeuvers executed with such leisure and easy deliberation that they didn’t make her seem restless, and you knew she calculated that effect.  A man who had had years with a real, living woman like Marise, didn’t know whether to laugh or swear at such mannerisms and the self-consciousness that underlay them.

There she was coming down the stairs now, when she heard Marise at the piano, with the children, and knew there was no more work to be done.  Pshaw!  He had meant to go out and join the others, but now he would wait a while, till he had finished his pipe.  A pipe beside Eugenia’s perfumed cigarettes always seemed so gross.  And he wanted to lounge at his ease, stretch out in his arm-chair with his feet on another.  Could you do that, with Eugenia fashion-plating herself on the sofa?

He leaned back smoking peacefully, listening to Marise’s voice brimming up all around the children’s as they romped through “The raggle-taggle gypsies, oh!”