still Eve was vaguely
conscious of a defect, a shortcoming. It was all very well so far as
it went, but the prospect was by no means unbounded. And, then, had
he not also designed gowns for Mrs. Dollond, and succeeded (there
was a sting in this) where success was somewhat more difficult of
achievement?

Now, moreover, he had begun to carry an aggrieved air--an air which
suggested that he pitied himself, that he considered that he had
been unfairly dealt with, that he was entitled to assume the
attitude of an innocent, injured victim of some blindly-dealt
retribution. What did that mean? The only explanation which his wife
could find for this symptomatic manifestation had its origin in the
unhappy episode of which the memory was always on the threshold of
her solitary thoughts, and, perhaps, of his. She began to feel, with
a certain compunction, that Dick must resent the circumstances which
obliged him practically to sever his acquaintance with a man who had
indisputably figured for so many years as his nearest friend; and
she asked herself sometimes whether the circumstances in question
did not, in effect, centre in herself.

Although the world was as yet far from being an open book for her,
it was conceivable that Philip Rainham (even if one judged by
appearances) had done nothing which need necessarily cast him beyond
the pale of the unregenerate society of bachelordom. It never
occurred to her that, so far as she herself was concerned, a renewal
of the old relation was among possible things: if she had met Philip
in public she would have made it clear to him that he was no longer
on the same plane with her; that, from her point of view, he had
practically ceased to exist.

It was only when she was alone, and pleasant, bitter memories of the
old days recurred, that she owned to herself how hard it was to
think of this intimacy as severed by a rule of moral conduct no less
inexorable, and even more cruel, than death. And yet there were
moments--and this was one of them--when her husband's bearing seemed
more portentous, when the explanation she had found possible seemed
no longer probable, and uncomfortable doubts as to the real meaning
of his uneasiness assailed her mind.

A fragment of burning coal fell with a clatter into the grate: she
welcomed the interruption, and for the moment abandoned her
thoughts, only, however, to enter upon them again by a different
path.

"I wonder why I don't hate him?" she asked