This was, of course, mere persiflage, but several members of the reading public thought it very fine.
He was asked everywhere—but only accepted invitations which appealed to him. At the functions he attended he usually contrived to fire off at least a couple of startling phrases which were remembered and repeated by those persons who unintentionally work inside advertising for the would-be great.
Being out and about so much he did not bother to alter the conditions of life at home. It is true he left rather more money for Eve to use, but since he showed no disposition for her to take a place beside him on the new plane she found no incentive to change the old régime.
On the morning after the play was produced, with all the notices before her, Eve had stretched out a hand to him, and said:
“You’ve won—absolutely you’ve won. My dear, I am so proud.”
“Yes, I’ve made a start. There’s a long way to go yet.”
With a chilly sense she felt that he had not said this from any modesty, but rather to delay admitting the success for which they had fought their battle.
She was conscious afterwards that he shunned the topic of his success, and kept the conversation on impersonal lines.
That glorious moment to which all her hopes had been pinned and all her labours consecrated did not mature into reality. It seemed that he was floating out of her life as a steamship passes a yacht at sea. And so, with the measure of his success, there came about in Eve a corresponding stagnation.
It would have been easy then to have engaged a servant to do the housework, to have bought furniture, linen, and the many delightful things she had planned to do; but somehow the inclination to do so had gone. It was preferable to have occupation of some sort, if only to keep her thoughts from brooding on these disappointments. Besides, she took an almost cynical interest in wondering how long he would allow her to remain as a drudge who worked for him with her two hands.