Possible Clues:

• Stay afloat
• Collapse of art trade we just survive
• Hold off undoing treat, reward Romeo's left
• One way to keep afloat (2 words)
• Get nowhere fast in current circumstances?
• Make no progress, but hold one's head up mainly
• Hold back and study wife cutting potato
• Fail to make progress in war, treated suspiciously
• Spill on the stairs?
• Notice wife going into retreat — somehow fail to make progress