her and father, did
they know the true circumstances,--that Mr. Ditmar desired her, was
perhaps in love with her--would be disturbed. Undoubtedly they would
have believed that she could "take care" of herself. She knew that
matters could not go on as they were, that she would either have to
leave Mr. Ditmar or--and here she baulked at being logical. She had no
intention of leaving him: to remain, according to the notions of her
parents, would be wrong. Why was it that doing wrong agreed with her,
energized her, made her more alert, cleverer, keying up her faculties?
turned life from a dull affair into a momentous one? To abandon Ditmar
would be to slump back into the humdrum, into something from which she
had magically been emancipated, symbolized by the home in which she sat;
by the red-checked tablecloth, the ugly metal lamp, the cherry chairs
with the frayed seats, the horsehair sofa from which the stuffing
protruded, the tawdry pillow with its colours, once gay, that Lise had
bought at a bargain at the Bagatelle.... The wooden clock with the
round face and quaint landscape below--the family's most cherished
heirloom--though long familiar, was not so bad; but the two yellowed
engravings on the wall offended her. They had been wedding presents to
Edward's father. One represented a stupid German peasant woman holding
a baby, and standing in front of a thatched cottage; its companion was
a sylvan scene in which certain wooden rustics were supposed to be
enjoying themselves. Between the two, and dotted with flyspecks, hung
an insurance calendar on which was a huge head of a lady, florid,
fluffy-haired, flirtatious. Lise thought her beautiful.

The room was ugly. She had long known that, but tonight the realization
came to her that what she chiefly resented in it was the note it
proclaimed--the note of a mute acquiescence, without protest or
struggle, in what life might send. It reflected accurately the attitude
of her parents, particularly of her father. With an odd sense of
detachment, of critical remoteness and contempt she glanced at him as
he sat stupidly absorbed in his newspaper, his face puckered, his
lips pursed, and Ditmar rose before her--Ditmar, the embodiment of an
indomitableness that refused to be beaten and crushed. She thought of
the story he had told her, how by self-assertion and persistence he had
become agent of the Chippering Mill, how he had convinced Mr. Stephen
Chippering of his ability. She could