XIV

JUST how Leslie Ward had drifted into his innocuous affair with the
star of "The Valley" he was not certain himself. Innocuous it
certainly was. Afterwards, looking back, he was to wonder sometimes
if it had not been precisely for the purpose it served. But that
was long months after. Not until the pattern was completed and he
was able to recognize his own work in it.

The truth was that he was not too happy at home. Nina's smart
little house on the Ridgely Road had at first kept her busy. She
had spent unlimited time with decorators, had studied and rejected
innumerable water-color sketches of interiors, had haunted auction
rooms and bid recklessly on things she felt at the moment she could
not do without, later on to have to wheedle Leslie into
straightening her bank balance. Thought, too, and considerable
energy had gone into training and outfitting her servants, and still
more into inducing them to wear the expensive uniforms and livery
she provided.

But what she made, so successfully, was a house rather than a home.
There were times, indeed, when Leslie began to feel that it was not
even a house, but a small hotel. They almost never dined alone,
and when they did Nina would explain that everybody was tied up.
Then, after dinner, restlessness would seize her, and she would want
to run in to the theater, or to make a call. If he refused, she
nursed a grievance all evening.