Also, when she was so harassed by doubt as to whether the engagement would end in marriage or in a humiliation of jilting, when her whole mind was busy with the problem of angling him within the swoop of the matrimonial net, how was she to find leisure to examine her heart?
Whether she wanted him or simply wanted a husband she could not have said.
She felt that his eccentric way of treating the engagement would justify her in keeping Arkwright in reserve.

But she was finding that there were limits to her ability to endure her own self-contempt, and she sacrificed Grant to her outraged self-respect.

Possibly she might have been less conscientious had she not come to look on Grant as an exceedingly pale and shadowy personality, a mere vague expression of well-bred amiability, male because trousered, identifiable chiefly by the dollar mark.
Her reward seemed immediate.

There came a day when Craig was all devotion, was talking incessantly of their future, was never once doubtful or even low-spirited.

It was simply a question of when they would marry--whether as soon as Stillwater fixed his date for retiring, or after Craig was installed.