stone structure which looked as though it had been shifted intact from the center of some medieval moat, loomed up, gray and stony, and Capra, his handyman, took over the car and drove it into the garage, while Cutter strode up the wide steps to the door.

Niels took his hat, and Mary was waiting for him in the library.

She was a rather large woman, although not fat, and when she wore high heels—which she was not prone to do, because although Cutter would not have cared, she kept trying to project into other people's minds and trying, as she said, “Not to do anything to them, that I wouldn't want them to do to me.”—she rose a good inch above Cutter. She was pleasant humored, and cooperative, and the one great irritant about her that annoyed Cutter, was the fact that she was not capable of meeting life wholeheartedly and with strength.

She steadily worried about other people's feelings and thoughts, so that Cutter wondered if she were capable of the slightest personal conviction. Yet that weakness was an advantage at the same time, to him, because she worked constantly toward making him happy. The house was run to his minutest liking, and the servants liked her, so that while she did not use a strong enough hand, they somehow got things done for her, and Cutter had no real complaint. Someday, he knew, he would be able to develop her into the full potential he knew she was capable of achieving, and then there wouldn't be even that one annoyance about her.

He sat down in the large, worn, leather chair, and she handed him a Scotch and water, and kissed his cheek, and then sat down opposite him in a smaller striped-satin chair.

“Did you have a nice day, dear?” she asked.

She was always pleasant and she always smiled at him, and she was [43]  indeed a handsome woman. They had been married but five years, and she was almost fifteen years younger than he, but they had a solid understanding. She respected his work, and she was careful with the money he allowed her, and she never forgot the Scotch and water. “The day was all right,” he said.

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43

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“My goodness,” she said, “you worked late. Do you want dinner right away?”

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