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That Beaulieu’s outlook was different is natural enough.

He had no patron to pave his path with gold, and it was all he could do to keep his head above water. The man had gone hungry. Had he stepped out of his world, he might have waxed fat and kicked. But that would have meant leaving every friend that he had—including Patricia Bohun. He worked hard, driving a promising pen, but the promise was shadowy stuff, and his earnings were fitful and slight. It follows that while he perceived the extreme desirability of riches, he knew that they were not essential to life and more than suspected that happiness could be found without them.

Marriage itself Patricia and Simon viewed in much the same light. Wedlock for them was an earthy business, the Solemnization of Matrimony differing but a little from the conveyance of land. In the actual service they saw a fine old tradition well worth preserving in these degenerate days. Had they been bidden to witness a Livery of Seisin they would have gone in the same spirit. I do not know that I blame them. Few of the unions with which they were brought in contact were made in heaven; some were patently home-made; many were fearfully and wonderfully made; while one and all were discussed as worldly engagements the letter of which should not be flagrantly dishonoured. To them the plighting of troth was a common or garden contract and nothing more. It is to their credit that it was nothing less. What lifted them out of the ruck was that to their way of thinking all common or garden contracts were sacred things. Their word once passed must be religiously kept. With the letter they were not concerned; the spirit was the thing. The game had to be played.