gs of the
servants. She was brushing her hair, and turned to him with strange
fierceness.

"What do you want?" she said. "Please leave my room!"

He answered: "I want to know how long this state of things between us is
to last? I have put up with it long enough."

"Will you please leave my room?"

"Will you treat me as your husband?"

"No."

"Then, I shall take steps to make you."

"Do!"

He stared, amazed at the calmness of her answer. Her lips were
compressed in a thin line; her hair lay in fluffy masses on her bare
shoulders, in all its strange golden contrast to her dark eyes--those
eyes alive with the emotions of fear, hate, contempt, and odd, haunting
triumph.

"Now, please, will you leave my room?" He turned round, and went sulkily
out.

He knew very well that he had no intention of taking steps, and he saw
that she knew too--knew that he was afraid to.

It was a habit with him to tell her the doings of his day: how such and
such clients had called; how he had arranged a mortgage for Parkes;
how that long-standing suit of Fryer v. Forsyte was getting on, which,
arising in the preternaturally careful disposition of his property by
his great uncle Nicholas, who had tied it up so that no one could get
at it at all, seemed likely to remain a source of income for several
solicitors till the Day of Judgment.

And how he had called in at Jobson's, and seen a Boucher sold, which he
had just missed buying of Talleyrand and Sons in Pall Mall.

He had an admiration for Boucher, Watteau, and all that school. It was a
habit with him to tell her all these matters, and he continued to do it
even now, talking for long spells at dinner, as though by the volubility
of words he could conceal from himself the ache in his heart.

Often, if they were alone, he made an attempt to kiss her when she said
good-night. He may have had some vague notion that some night she would
let him; or perhaps only the feeling that a husband ought to kiss his
wife. Even if she hated him, he at all events ought not to put himself
in the wrong by neglecting this ancient rite.

And why did she hate him? Even now he could not altogether believe it.
It was strange to be hated!--the emotion was too extreme; yet he hated
Bosinney, that Buccaneer, that prowling vagabond, that night-wanderer.
For in his thoughts Soames always saw him lying in wait--wandering. Ah,
but he must be in very low water! Young Burkitt, the architect, had seen
him co