m, his careless pose
stiffening under Laura's touch, Lawrence for the first time began
to wonder whether he would not gain more in happiness than he
would lose in freedom if he were to make the child his wife.

"To make the child his wife." He was not really more of an egoist
than the average man, but he did assume that if he wanted her he
could win her. His mistress was very young: it was her rose of
youth and her unquelled spirit that charmed him even more than
her beauty: and she had not sixpence to her name, while he was a
rich man. He did not, as Bernard would have done, go on to plume
himself on his magnanimity, or infer that Isabel's gratitude
would give him a claim on her fealty over and beyond the Pauline
duty of wives. In the immediate personal relation Lawrence was
visited by a saving humility. But on the main issue he took, or
thought he took, a practical view. A man in love cannot soberly
analyse his own psychological state, and Lawrence did not know
that he had fallen in love with Isabel at first sight or that the
germ of matrimonial intentions had lain all along in his mind.
Here and now he believed that he first thought of marrying her.

Then he would have to stay on at Wanhope. And court Isabel
under the eyes of all Chilmark? Under Bernard's eyes at all
events; they were already watching him. Lawrence was irritated:
whatever happened, he was not going to be watched by his cousin
and chaffed and argued over and betted on. In most points
indifferently frank, Lawrence was silent as the grave where sex
came into play.

"Thank you." He touched with his lips the hand that Laura had
innocently laid on his wrist. "It can't really be fourteen
years, Laura, since you were staying at Farringay."

"Flatterer!" said Laura, smiling but startled, and rising from
her chair. "This to an old married woman!"

"Ah! when I remember that I knew you before this fellow did--!"

"Here, I say," came Bernard's voice across the table, riotously
amused, "none o' that! none o' that!"

"Penalty for having a charming wife," laughed Lawrence, in his
preoccupation blind and deaf to danger signals. He rose to open
the door for Laura. "By the by, if you go to the vicarage this
afternoon, I'll stroll up with you, if I may. I suppose I owe
the young lady that much civility!"

"I can't: I'm busy," said Laura hastily. "That is, I don't know
what time I shall get away. Go by yourself, don't wait for me."

"Rubbish