ngue was neither sharp nor
hard, and yet it hurt him every time it spoke. It did not always speak
good grammar. Sometimes, in moments of flurry or excitement, an
aspirate miscarried. Happily those moments were rare; for at bottom
Flossie's temperament was singularly calm. Remembering his own past
lapses, he felt that he was the last person to throw a stone at her;
but that reflection did not prevent a shudder from going down his back
every time it happened. And if her speech remained irreproachable, the
offending strain ran through all her movements. He disliked the way
she walked, and the way she sat down, the way she spread her skirts or
gathered them, the way she carried her body and turned her head, the
way her black eyes provoked a stare and then resented it, her changes
of posture under observation, the perpetual movement of her hands that
were always settling and resettling her hat, her hair, her veil; all
the blushings and bridlings, the pruderies and impertinences of the
pretty woman of her class, he disliked them all. He more than
disliked, he distrusted her air of over-strained propriety. He
detected in it the first note of falseness in her character. In a
thousand little things her instincts, her perceptions were at fault.

This was disagreeably borne in upon him that first Saturday after
Lucia's arrival, when he and Flossie were in the train going down to
Ealing. The compartment was packed with City men (how he wished
Flossie would turn her head and not her eyes if she must look at
them!); and as they got in at Earl's Court, one of them, a polite
person, gave up his seat to the lady. Flossie turned an unseeing eye
on the polite person, and took his seat with a superb pretence of
having found it herself after much search. And when Rickman said
"Thanks" to the polite person her indignant glance informed him that
she had expected support in her policy of repudiation.

"My dear Beaver," he said as he helped her on to the platform at
Ealing, "when you take another person's seat the least you can do is
to say Thank you."

"I _never_ speak to gentlemen in trains and buses. That's the way they
always begin."

"Good Heavens, the poor man was only being civil."

"Thank you. I've gone about enough to know what 'is kind of civility
means. I wasn't going to lay myself open to impertinence."

"I should have thought you'd gone about enough to know the
difference."

Flossie said nothing. She was furious with him f