Slowly the hours wore on for her, until the deepening twilight brought the period when her husband was to return again.

To this return her mind looked forward with an anxiety that could not be repressed.
The dreaded meeting with his wife over, Claire thought with less repugnance of what he had done, and was rather inclined to justify than condemn himself.
"It's the way of the world," so he argued; "and unless I do as the world does, I must remain where I am--at the bottom of the ladder.

But why should I stay below, while all around me are struggling upward?
As for what preachers and moralists call strictly fair dealing, it may be all well enough in theory, pleasant to talk about, and all that; but it won't do in practice, as the world now is.

Where each is grasping all that he can lay his hands on, fair or foul, one must scramble with the rest, or get nothing.

That is so plain that none can deny the proposition.