She began thinking the obvious drama--Owen discovering her
with Ulick, declining ever to see her again, her suicide or his, etc.
But she could not believe that Owen would decline ever to see her again
even if--but she was not going to go wrong with Ulick, there was no use
supposing such things, And again her thoughts paused, and like things
frightened by the dark, withdrew silently, not daring to look further.

She met Ulick every night at the theatre, and she had him to sit with
her in her dressing-room during the entr'actes.... She remembered the
pleasure she had taken in these conversations, and the strange, whirling
impulse which drew them all the while closer, until they dreaded the
touching of their knees. She had taken him back in the carriage and he
had kissed her; she had allowed him to kiss her the other night, and she
knew that if she were alone with him again that she would not be able to
resist the temptation. Her thoughts turned a little, and she considered
what her life would be if she were to yield to Ulick. Her life would
become a series of subterfuges, and in a flash of thought she saw how,
after spending the afternoon with Ulick, she would come home to find
Owen waiting for her: he would take her in his arms, she would have to
free herself, and, feeling his breath upon her cheek, save herself
somehow from his kiss. He would suspect and question her. He would say,
"Give me your word of honour that Ulick Dean is not your lover;" and she
heard herself pledge her word in a lie, and the lie would have to be
repeated again and again.

Until she had met Ulick, she had not seen a man for years whose thoughts
ranged above the gross pleasure of the moment, the pleasure of eating,
of drinking, of love-making ... and she was growing like those people.
The other night at dinner at the Savoy she had looked round the table at
the men's faces, some seven or eight, varying in age from twenty-four to
forty-eight, and she had said to herself, "Not one of these men has done
anything worth doing, not one has even tried." Looking at the men of
twenty-four, she had said to herself, "He will do all the man of
forty-eight has done,--the same dinners, the same women, the same
racecourses, the same shooting, the same tireless search after
amusement, the same life unlit by any ideal." She was no better, Owen
was no better. There was no hope for either of them? He had surrounded
her with his friends, and she thought of the invita