He knew the need of it.
When some one of the many middle-class individuals whom he knew, who had money, would get into trouble, he would shake his head.

It didn't do to talk about those things.

If it came up for discussion among such friends as with him passed for close, he would deprecate the folly of the thing.
"It was all right to do it--all men do those things--but why wasn't he careful?
A man can't be too careful." He lost sympathy for the man that made a mistake and was found out.
On this account he still devoted some time to showing his wife about--time which would have been wearisome indeed if it had not been for the people he would meet and the little enjoyments which did not depend upon her presence or absence.

He watched her with considerable curiosity at times, for she was still attractive in a way and men looked at her.

She was affable, vain, subject to flattery, and this combination, he knew quite well, might produce a tragedy in a woman of her home position.