k....

She clasped her hands on the arms of the chair, checked its swaying
with a firm thrust of her foot, and fixed her eyes upon the inward
vision....

To begin with, what had made to-day's visit so different from the
others? It became suddenly vivid to her that there had been many,
almost daily, others, since Guy Dawnish's coming to Wentworth. Even the
previous winter--the winter of his arrival from England--his visits had
been numerous enough to make Wentworth aware that--very naturally--Mrs.
Ransom was "looking after" the stray young Englishman committed to her
husband's care by an eminent Q. C. whom the Ransoms had known on one of
their brief London visits, and with whom Ransom had since maintained
professional relations. All this was in the natural order of things, as
sanctioned by the social code of Wentworth. Every one was kind to Guy
Dawnish--some rather importunately so, as Margaret Ransom had smiled to
observe--but it was recognized as fitting that she should be kindest,
since he was in a sense her property, since his people in England, by
profusely acknowledging her kindness, had given it the domestic
sanction without which, to Wentworth, any social relation between the
sexes remained unhallowed and to be viewed askance. Yes! And even this
second winter, when the visits had become so much more frequent, so
admitted a part of the day's routine, there had not been, from any one,
a hint of surprise or of conjecture....

Mrs. Ransom smiled with a faint bitterness. She was protected by her
age, no doubt--her age and her past, and the image her mirror gave back
to her....

Her door-handle turned suddenly, and the bolt's resistance was met by
an impatient knock.

"Margaret!"

She started up, her brightness fading, and unbolted the door to admit
her husband.

"Why are you locked in? Why, you're not dressed yet!" he exclaimed.

It was possible for Ransom to reach his dressing-room by a slight
circuit through the passage; but it was characteristic of the
relentless domesticity of their relation that he chose, as a matter of
course, the directer way through his wife's bedroom. She had never
before been disturbed by this practice, which she accepted as
inevitable, but had merely adapted her own habits to it, delaying her
hasty toilet till he was safely in his room, or completing it before
she heard his step on the stair; since a scrupulous traditional prudery
had miraculously survived this massacre of all th