“Did I? Perhaps I did. Ruth was very beautiful, you know⁠—rather like an angel or a saint, or something that had stepped down from a niche in a church. I had fine ideas, I remember, of turning over a new leaf, of settling down and living up to the highest traditions of English home-life with a beautiful wife who loved me.”

He laughed again, rather more discordantly.

“But you don’t believe that, I suppose?” he said.

“I have no doubt at all that you married Ruth for her money,” said Van Aldin unemotionally.

“And that she married me for love?” asked the other ironically.

“Certainly,” said Van Aldin.

Derek Kettering stared at him for a minute or two, then he nodded reflectively.