him--; but that Wilkinson should have gone out of his way to pursue
calamity (as if he could never have enough of it) really seemed a
most unnecessary thing.

For there had been no pursuit on the part of the lady. Wilkinson's
wife had the quality of her defects, and revealed herself chiefly in
a formidable reluctance. It was understood that Wilkinson had
prevailed only after an austere struggle. Her appearance
sufficiently refuted any theory of unholy fascination or disastrous
charm.

Wilkinson's wife was not at all nice to look at. She had an
insignificant figure, a small, square face, colorless hair scraped
with difficulty to the top of her head, eyes with no lashes to
protect you from their stare, a mouth that pulled at an invisible
curb, a sallow skin stretched so tight over her cheek-bones that the
red veins stood stagnant there; and with it all, poor lady, a dull,
strained expression hostile to further intimacy.

Even in her youth she never could have looked young, and she was
years older than Wilkinson. Not that the difference showed, for his
marriage had made Wilkinson look years older than he was; at least,
so it was said by people who had known him before that unfortunate
event.

It was not even as if she had been intelligent. Wilkinson had a
gentle passion for the things of intellect; his wife seemed to exist
on purpose to frustrate it. In no department of his life was her
influence so penetrating and malign. At forty he no longer counted;
he had lost all his brilliance, and had replaced it by a shy,
unworldly charm. There was something in Wilkinson that dreamed or
slept, with one eye open, fixed upon his wife. Of course, he had his
blessed hours of deliverance from the woman. Sometimes he would fly
in her face and ask people to dine at his house in Hampstead, to
discuss Roman remains, or the Troubadours, or Nietzsche. He never
could understand why his wife couldn't "enter," as he expressed it,
into these subjects. He smiled at you in the dimmest, saddest way
when he referred to it. "It's extraordinary," he would say, "the
little interest she takes in Nietzsche."

Mrs. Norman found him once wandering in the High Street, with his
passion full on him. He was a little absent, a little flushed; his
eyes shone behind his spectacles; and there were pleasant creases in
his queer, clean-shaven face.

She inquired the cause of his delight.

"I've got a man coming to dine this evening, to have a little talk