He led a life that was a model of regularity. But he knew the
truth--that Alice had ended his career.
He was content. Ambition had always been vague with him and now his habit
of following the line of least resistance had drifted him into this
mill-pond. Sometimes, he would give himself up to bitter self-reproach,
disgusted that he should be so satisfied, so non-resisting in a lot in
every way the reverse of that which he had marked out for himself. If he
had been chained he might, probably would, have broken away. But Alice
never attempted to control him. His will was her law. She was especially
shrewd about money matters, so often the source of disputes and
estrangements. Two months after she reappeared, she proposed that they take
an apartment together.
"I saw one to-day in West Twelfth Street at seventy dollars a month," she
said, "and I'm sure I could manage it so that you would be much better off
than you are now."
He viewed this plan with suspicion. It definitely committed him to a mode
of life which he had always regarded as degrading both to the man and the
woman and as certain of a calamitous ending. So he made excuses for delay,
fully intending never to yield. But although Alice did not speak of her
plan again, he found himself more and more attracted by it, caught himself
speculating about various apartments he happened to see as he went about
the streets.
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