“His idea of being nice to a woman,” she told herself impatiently, “is to give her expensive things, and above all keep her idle.”  She did not add, “Amy taught him that.”  But it was in the back of her mind.

He often talked of his business, he tried to explain to her the details of speculative building, real estate values and the like.  And listening and watching his face, she felt his force and vitality, his doggedness, the fight in him.  She recalled Amy’s eager faith in Joe as a man who was “simply bound to make money.”  And at times she said to herself, “What a pity.”  Still, it was all rather puzzling.  For his talk of the growth of the city, his view of its mighty pulsing life, restless, heaving, leaping on, gripped her more than ever before.  And moreover, now that Amy was dead, Ethel soon began to feel another Joe emerging out of some period long ago.  With a new and curious eagerness to find in him what her sister had never known (an eagerness she would have disclaimed with the utmost indignation), she began to probe into Joe’s past.  And in answer to her questions he threw out hints of old ideals in which the making of money had played only a second part.  He had meant to be an architect, a builder of another kind.  Instead of putting up “junk in the Bronx,” he had meant to do something big and new, something bold and very French, “to make these infernal New Yorkers sit up and open their cold grey eyes.”  At times he rather thrilled her with hints of his early bachelor life in New York and Paris, his student days.

About this time, one evening, he brought his partner home to dinner, but the experiment proved even more of a failure than it had in the past.  Nourse made Ethel feel as before his surly, jealous dislike of her presence in Joe’s home.  And Ethel’s hostility redoubled.  She recalled what Amy had told her of his tiresome worship of work, its routine and its dull detail.  No wonder Joe’s ideals had died, with such a man in his office.

“What a pity you’re his partner,” her manner plainly said to him, for she was not good at hiding dislikes.  And to that his gloomy eyes rejoined, “What a damned shame it you were his wife.”

But Nourse did not come again.  And with business dropped out of their talk, she and Joe turned to other things—­small happenings of the household, amusing incidents of the day, and little problems to be solved.  They were well into the summer by now, and Susette ought to go to the seashore.  They began to discuss seaside hotels, and chose a place along the Sound.  It was decided that Emily should stay here to look after Joe, and that he should run up for his week-ends.  In the meantime, as his business improved, he began to bring Ethel little surprises, candy or spring flowers, and to take her out in his car at night.  They went to the theatre several times.  And everything which was said or done upon such occasions gave Ethel food for thinking.