One and all they had stumbled into the closet of Memory. Pictures of dead days stared at them—days when they had come and gone as they pleased, before there had been a new earth and, seemingly, a new heaven. Old sounds rang in their wistful ears, forgotten scents came floating out of the darkness…. The closet grew into a gallery….
"Good night," said Betty quietly. "Don't sit up late."
She slipped out of the room.
It was a tired face that George Alison raised to Anthony.
"Thank your stars," he said jerkily, "that you aren't married. I don't matter. I don't mean I like service, but I'm well enough off. But Bet—poor Bet. Think what her life should be, and then look at what it is. And her father's worth half a million. He cut her off when she married me. I had enough for two then, so it didn't much matter. But now…. She's wonderful—perfectly marvellous, but—it's hard to see her hands getting rough, man. Very hard. Her hands…."
Anthony crossed the room and touched him upon the shoulder.
"If I were married," he said, "I should feel just the same. And then there'd be two fools instead of one. My dear fellow, if Betty regretted her bargain, then she'd need your sympathy. As it is, so long as she's got you, d'you think she cares whether she wears sables or an apron?"
"But you saw how she dried up just now."
"Shall I tell you why?" said Anthony.
"Why?"