Less of it was required for the state of being married than he had, on the whole, expected; less, strangely, for the state of being married even as he was married.

And there was a logic in the matter, he knew; a logic that but gave this truth a sort of solidity of evidence.

Mr.Verver, decidedly, helped him with it--with his wedded condition; helped him really so much that it made all the difference.

In the degree in which he rendered it the service on Mr.
Verver's part was remarkable--as indeed what service, from the first of their meeting, had not been?
He was living, he had been living these four or five years, on Mr.Verver's services: a truth scarcely less plain if he dealt with them, for appreciation, one by one, than if he poured them all together into the general pot of his gratitude and let the thing simmer to a nourishing broth.

To the latter way with them he was undoubtedly most disposed; yet he would even thus, on occasion, pick out a piece to taste on its own merits.