With a new and curious eagerness to find in him what her sister had never known (an eagerness she would have disclaimed with the utmost indignation), she began to probe into Joe's past.

And in answer to her questions he threw out hints of old ideals in which the making of money had played only a second part.

He had meant to be an architect, a builder of another kind.

Instead of putting up "junk in the Bronx," he had meant to do something big and new, something bold and very French, "to make these infernal New Yorkers sit up and open their cold grey eyes." At times he rather thrilled her with hints of his early bachelor life in New York and Paris, his student days.
About this time, one evening, he brought his partner home to dinner, but the experiment proved even more of a failure than it had in the past.
Nourse made Ethel feel as before his surly, jealous dislike of her presence in Joe's home.

And Ethel's hostility redoubled.