His fidelity to his wife, inspired more by this fear of hurting her than by the social cowardice which involved the idea of detection, had become a fetish with him. The less he desired her and the more repugnant she grew for him, the more desperately he defended to himself and to others the virtues of marital faithfulness.
He had advanced in eight years into an intolerant champion of morality. Even his political orations bristled with panegyrics on the sanctity of the home and the high duty men owed their wives. The thing repeated itself over and over in his day, haunted his night and filtered through all his public and private actions. It had formed the basis of a new Basine--the moral champion. It had colored his ambitions and determined his direction of thought. It hammered--a hidden psychological refrain through the fibers of his thought.... In order to reconcile himself to the distasteful role he had foisted upon himself by accidentally embracing Henrietta in his mother's kitchen nine years ago, he must eulogize his predicament and convince himself and others that all deviations were a vicious and dishonorable matter. Held by neither love nor desire to the side of a woman he had tricked himself into marrying, he managed to bind himself to her by the stern worship of a code which proclaimed fidelity the highest manifestation of the soul.
As he walked toward a street car he was proud of his self-conquest. He was thinking about the girl, Ruth. He had taken himself in hand and overcome the dangerous confusion that the sight of her started. His sense of honor preened itself on the victory. That was the way to handle oneself--always face the facts. It was better than hiding one's head in the sand. Look, it had happened this way. By being matter-of-fact, by converting the girl from a luring, enigmatic figure into an employee, he had established an immunity in himself. Was he certain of this? Yes, she would be merely another of the young women employed in his office. And he was in love with none of them. Or even interested. So their relation would be that of employee and employer. Which was harmless and honorable.
He walked along, piling up assurances. As he entered the car he was going over in his mind with an imaginative eagerness the details of the situation he had created. He would be very stern, aloof. He would acquaint her with his secret files and gradually educate her into an efficient assistant. She was a university girl. Of course her running around with freaks, the way she did--artists and talky women, was a handicap. But she would get over that and become entirely sensible.