those tangled leapings-forward or harkings-back,
those moods and counter moods and relapses which made up the necessary
course of her mind. But sometimes she was here and sometimes she was
there, sometimes quite back to the beginning an obedient, scrupulously
loyal and up-looking young wife, sometimes a wife concealing the
humiliation of an unhappy choice in a spurious satisfaction and
affection. And mixed up with widening spaces of criticism and
dissatisfaction and hostility there were, you must understand, moments
of real liking for this outrageous little man and streaks of an absurd
maternal tenderness for him. They had been too close together to avoid
that. She had a woman's affection of ownership too, and disliked to see
him despised or bettered or untidy; even those ridiculous muddy hands
had given her a twinge of solicitude....

And all the while she was trying to see the universe also, the great
background of their two little lives, and to think what it might mean
for her over and above their too obliterating relationship.

Sec.6

It would be like counting the bacteria of an infection to trace how
ideas of insubordination came drifting into Sir Isaac's Paradise. The
epidemic is in the air. There is no Tempter nowadays, no definitive
apple. The disturbing force has grown subtler, blows in now like a
draught, creeps and gathers like the dust,--a disseminated serpent. Sir
Isaac brought home his young, beautiful and rather crumpled and
astonished Eve and by all his standards he was entitled to be happy ever
afterwards. He knew of one danger, but against that he was very
watchful. Never once for six long years did she have a private duologue
with another male. But Mudie and Sir Jesse Boot sent parcels to the
house unchecked, the newspaper drifted in not even censored: the nurses
who guided Ellen through the essential incidents of a feminine career
talked of something called a "movement." And there was Georgina....

The thing they wanted they called the Vote, but that demand so hollow,
so eyeless, had all the terrifying effect of a mask. Behind that mask
was a formless invincible discontent with the lot of womanhood. It
wanted,--it was not clear what it wanted, but whatever it wanted, all
the domestic instincts of mankind were against admitting there was
anything it could want. That remarkable agitation had already worked up
to the thunderous pitch, there had been demonstrations at Public
Meetings, scenes in the