The fourth year of his marriage found Majendie supremely miserable at home; and established, in his office, before a fair, wide prospect of financial prosperity. The office had become his home. He worked there early and late, with a dumb, indomitable industry. For the first time in his life Majendie was beginning to take an interest in his business. Disappointed in the only form of happiness that appealed to him, he applied himself gravely and steadily to shipping, finding some personal satisfaction in the thought that Anne and Peggy would benefit by this devotion. There was Peggy's education to be thought of. When she was older they would travel. There would be greater material comfort and a wider life for Anne. He himself counted for little in his schemes. At thirty-five he found himself, with all his flames extinguished, settling down into the dull habits and the sober hopes of middle age.
To the mind of Gorst, the spectacle of Majendie in his office was, as he informed him, too sad for words. To Majendie's mind nothing could well be sadder than the private affairs of Gorst, to which he was frequently required to give his best attention.
The prodigal had been at last admitted to Prior Street on a footing of his own. He blossomed out in perpetual previous engagements whenever he was asked to dine; but he had made a bargain with Majendie by which he claimed unlimited opportunity for seeing Edie as the price of his promise to reform. This time Majendie was obliged to intimate to him that his reform must be regarded as the price of his admission.
For, this time, in the long year of his exile, the prodigal's prodigality had exceeded the measure of all former years. And, to his intense surprise, he found that Majendie drew the line somewhere. In consequence of this, and of the "entanglement" to which Majendie had once referred, the aspect of Gorst's affairs was peculiarly dark and threatening.
In the spring of the year they gathered to their climax. One afternoon Gorst appeared in Majendie's office, sat down with a stricken air, and appealed to his friend to help him out.
"I thought you were out," said Majendie.
"So I am. It's because I'm so well out that I'm in for it. Evans's have turned her off. She's down on her luck—and—well—you see, now she wants me to marry her."
"I see. Well—"
"Well, of course I can't. Maggie's a dear little thing, but—you see—I'm not the first."
"You're sure of that?"