Love Around the Corner

Arthur Green had a reputation in the capital before Shirley Hill ever met him. People called him cruel and said there was nothing behind his eyes. He was also the uncle of Shirley's closest friend. Shirley, a daughter of the Hill family, got drunk one night and woke up in Arthur's bed. She married him quickly to take responsibility for it, and she expected the marriage to be unbearable. Arthur turned out to be good-looking and to give her whatever she wanted. He deferred to her in almost everything. By the time she was in love with him she found out that none of it had happened by accident. Arthur had arranged the whole thing, and had been arranging it for years. She had once saved a boy without thinking much about it. That boy had spent the time since looking up at her from the bottom of his own life, the way you look at a sky full of stars.