fell in love with May Gaston, however, part of her attraction for him
had lain in his sense of a difference between them, of her grasp on
things and on aspects of things which eluded him; in this mood he had
been prepared to worship, to learn, to amend. These things for a little
while he had done or attempted, and had been met by zealous efforts to
the same end on her part. His great moments had been frequent then, and
May had felt that the risky work she had undertaken might prosper and at
last be crowned with success. As for some months back this idea of hers
had been dying, even so Quisante's humble mood died. Now his suspicious
vanity saw blame of what he was, or even contempt of him, in every word
by which she might seem to invite him to become anything different.
Though she had declared herself on his side by the most vital action of
her life, he imputed to her a leaning towards treachery; her heart was
more with his critics than with him. Yet he did not become indifferent
to her praise or her blame, but rather grew morbidly sensitive and
exacting, intolerant of questioning and disliking even a smile. He loved
her, depended on her, and valued her opinion; but she became in a
certain sense, if not an enemy, yet a person to be conciliated, to be
hoodwinked, to be tricked into a favourable view. Hence there crept into
his bearing towards her just that laboured insincerity which she had
never ceased to blame in his attitude towards the world at large. He
showed her the truth about himself now only as it were by accident, only
when he failed to perceive that the truth would not be to her liking.
But this was often, and every time it happened it seemed to him as well
as to her at once to widen the gulf between them and to move further
away any artificial means of crossing it. Thus the new sense of
self-dissatisfaction and self-distrust which had grown upon him centred
round his wife and seemed to owe its origin to her.

On her side there came a sort of settled, resigned, not altogether
unhumorous, despair. She saw that she had over-rated her power alike
over him and over herself. She could not change what she hated in him,
and she could not cease to hate it. She could neither make the normal
level higher nor yet bear patiently with the normal lower level; the
great moments would not become perpetual and the small moments grew more
irritating and more humiliating. But the great moments recurred from
time to time and never