CHAPTER XII.
Clarice was indeed even more disappointed than Mrs.Willoughby imagined.
She had looked forward to her marriage, and had indeed been persuaded to look forward to it, as to the smiting of a rock in her husband's nature whence a magical spring of inspiration should flow perennially.

'The future owes us a great deal,' Mallinson had said.

'It does indeed,' Clarice had replied in her most sentimental tones.

Only she made the mistake of believing that the date of her marriage was the time appointed for payment.

Instead of that spontaneous flow of inspiration, she had beneath her eyes a process of arduous work, which was not limited to a special portion of the day, like the work of a business man, and which, in the case of a man with Mallinson's temperament, inevitably produced an incessant fretfulness with his surroundings.