o,
in his sickening superiority, could thus deny her, and with her all
women! That stare was as if he saw her--a doll tricked out in garments
labelled soul, spirit, rights, responsibilities, dignity, freedom--all
so many words. It was vile, it was horrible, that he should see her
thus! And a really terrific struggle began in her between the desire
to get up and cry this out, and the knowledge that it would be stupid,
undignified, even mad, to show her comprehension of what he would never
admit or even understand that he had revealed to her. And then a sort
of cynicism came to her rescue. What a funny thing was married life--to
have lived all these years with him, and never known what was at the
bottom of his heart! She had the feeling now that, if she went up to him
and said: "I am in love with that boy!" it would only make him droop the
corners of his mouth and say in his most satiric voice: "Really! That
is very interesting!"--would not change in one iota his real thoughts
of her; only confirm him in the conviction that she was negligible,
inexplicable, an inferior strange form of animal, of no real interest to
him.

And then, just when she felt that she could not hold herself in any
longer, he got up, passed on tiptoe to the door, opened it noiselessly,
and went out.

The moment he had gone, she jumped up. So, then, she was linked to one
for whom she, for whom women, did not, as it were, exist! It seemed to
her that she had stumbled on knowledge of almost sacred importance,
on the key of everything that had been puzzling and hopeless in their
married life. If he really, secretly, whole-heartedly despised her,
the only feeling she need have for one so dry, so narrow, so basically
stupid, was just contempt. But she knew well enough that contempt would
not shake what she had seen in his face; he was impregnably walled
within his clever, dull conviction of superiority. He was for ever
intrenched, and she would always be only the assailant. Though--what did
it matter, now?

Usually swift, almost careless, she was a long time that evening over
her toilette. Her neck was very sunburnt, and she lingered, doubtful
whether to hide it with powder, or accept her gipsy colouring. She did
accept it, for she saw that it gave her eyes, so like glacier ice, under
their black lashes, and her hair, with its surprising glints of flame
colour, a peculiar value.

When the dinner-bell rang she passed her husband's door without, as
us