an aspect of the situation which had never occurred to him. Now that he was a family man he would be expected to make a living for his bride.
You can't, she went on rather sententiously, always live on your father, Harold dear. My daughters . . . Well, dearest, they couldn't respect you.
What would he do? Harold helplessly interrogated himself. No more was said about the matter that night, but he tossed about restlessly in bed, his heart beating violently, revolving the idea over and over. It seemed that he could never accustom himself to the problems of life. As fast as the old ones were solved, fresh ones rose on every hand. Nothing seemed simple. How, for example, could he expect to get on sufficiently well to enable him to support his wife without his father's assistance? He could think of no possible opening in the business line except to go in with his father, and his father had expressly said that he did not wish him to do that. What could he do?
Alice, on her part, did not refer to the matter again for several days. She exposed the pleasantest side of her nature, wore her prettiest dresses. She even refrained from complaining about the plates. They took long idyllic walks together: on the dunes. They bathed in the sea. The actual clouds drifted out of the sky and the tone of the atmosphere grew more mellow, less grey. Their evenings they passed on the settle. The morose Emma, having washed the dishes and arranged
