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birth of little Sandra had not freed her from her earlier suspicion that she and Trevor lacked a true meeting of the minds. He had an even disposition and rarely lost his temper—never over trifles—and he showed a companionable interest in what she did with her days. He was generous with money, a dutiful host when they entertained, and his gallantry of manner with the more attractive female guests never exceeded what was expected in north shore society. But when she observed him with a group of men, as at a cocktail party when the men would cluster to discuss some political or sports event, or on a summer's night when the ladies were still secluded in the drawing room after dinner but could hear their husbands on the terrace through the open french windows, and heard his laugh, warm and resonant, rise above the others, she knew that he was at his ease in a way that he never was with her. Was she lacking in proper spousal sympathy, or was this something that was true of men in general? A simple fact that was idle to worry about?
    She thought of her father and how obviously his happiest moments were at his fishing camp with other men, but then her parents' marriage didn't really count in this as it had never been a happy one. She loved her brother, and he her, yet she knew she often bored him, but he didn't count either, for everything but science bored him. She tried to discuss it with her friend Polly, who immediately asked her if something had gone wrong in the "bed department," and when reassured about this, blandly dismissed the subject with a "Men don't care about the things we care about."
    Clara turned over in her mind the subject of bed.
Was
that the main point of a marriage? And if so, was hers such a success? Trevor, at any rate, had no complaints about the way she received his love, and she, despite the limitation of her erotic experience to him alone, suspected that his performance would be the envy of most of the wives of their group. He took sex very seriously indeed; he liked a variety of positions and showed a considerable past history in his dexterity, and he was always considerate and helpful in bringing her to satisfaction. And yet was it just her inexperience and romantic slushiness that made her feel, when he stripped in the bathroom and strode across their chamber, showing his fine nude figure, to join her naked in bed, that he was visiting a woman other than the lady of the downstairs drawing room, other than Mrs. Trevor Hoyt? A woman who was his beautiful mistress? And a beloved mistress, too. Oh, yes, surely, for that night, anyway. And tomorrow night. Perhaps for any number of nights. But what of the days?
    Her mother-in-law had tried to help about these. She did not overly interfere, but she was always full of suggestions if asked. She exuded the air of the born aristocrat who has never looked to anything but inherited right to support her rule. She was beneficent and good-tempered, but that, Clara felt, was because rebellion, or even the thought of it, never existed in her domain. Her two daughters, like Clara, lived near her, both in town and country, and basked obediently in the sunshine of her good will. She gave every appearance of being wholeheartedly devoted to Clara as the wife of the heir, and why not? Had she not raised her son to pick just such a girl as his consort?
    The day that Clara walked over to the "big house" to consult her mother-in-law about the job on
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was a Saturday, and all the Hoyts were in the country. Close though the family was, there was no promiscuous dropping in; visits always had to be announced, and Clara, knowing Mrs. Hoyt's busy schedule, was not surprised to be kept waiting a good ten minutes in the big formal drawing room that looked out over a wide terrace to a lawn watered by twirling sprinklers. The high-ceilinged chamber, with its fine English eighteenth-century furniture and large family portraits, just escaped, as did the square Georgian mansion