eemed impossible,
incredible. Sitting there with half-closed eyes she dreamed of the
future; the disgust of Melbourne had gone; the disillusionment of
Louis's letter had gone, and yet she had very few delusions about what
was going to happen to her.

She wished she had the courage to run away now, to her uncle, or
anywhere away from Louis. And she knew quite well that nothing on earth
would make her leave him. She was beginning to realize, vaguely, what
marriage to him might mean; she had flashing visions of him, drunk,
dirty, foolish and--beastly. She shrunk from him fastidiously; even
thinking of him made her heart thump in sheer horror; she felt that, to
be shut up in a room with him when he was drunk would be an indignity, a
disgust too horrible to contemplate. And he had hinted things that
frightened her, about her "having her work cut out" about her "not
realizing what she had taken on." Next minute the soft sunlight and the
fluttering leaves made her think of him when he was not drunk, and she
frowned; she so hated his air of superiority, his calm pushing aside of
her opinions as not worth notice, his cool insistence on her inferiority
as a woman.

"Still, he's awfully clever," the dancing water told her. But she knew
that he was not more clever than very many other people and that his
cleverness had never been of any use except in getting money.

"He's grown up--a big, grown up man, and you're only a girl," said the
soft, exhilarating breeze that sang in her hair. And that thought
allowed no answer, it was so flattering, so satisfying.

"And--he needs me. He says he'll die without me," she told herself, and
that was unanswerable.

Suddenly she stood up and looked over the sea wall. There seemed to be
two Louis in her hands, being weighed and, all at once, she felt a
little helpless and leaned rather heavily against the sea wall.

"It isn't a bit of use. I don't honestly believe any of these things are
the real reason I'm going to marry him. I honestly believe I want to, so
what's the good of lying to myself about it? But--oh what an idiot I am!
It seems to me--there's something a bit degrading--in marrying a man
like Louis--simply because--because--you _want_ to."

She walked round and round the big eucalyptus as though she were in a
cage. Then she came back and stood against the wall again, watching the
sailors on the man-of-war with unseeing eyes. She felt hot and flushed
and a little ashamed of hersel