antagonistic
as we two. We walked a dozen steps in stupefied union, and hit upon
crossways. From that moment it was tug and tug; he me, I him. By
resisting, I made him a tyrant; and he, by insisting, made me a rebel.
And he was the maddest of tyrants--a weak one. My dear, he was also a
double-dealer. Or no, perhaps not in design. He was moved at one time by
his interests; at another by his idea of his honour. He took what I could
get for him, and then turned and drubbed me for getting it.'

'This is the creature you try to excuse!' exclaimed indignant Emma.

'Yes, because--but fancy all the smart things I said being called my
"sallies"!--can a woman live with it?--because I behaved . . . I despised
him too much, and I showed it. He is not a contemptible man before the
world; he is merely a very narrow one under close inspection. I could
not--or did not--conceal my feeling. I showed it not only to him, to my
friend. Husband grew to mean to me stifler, lung-contractor, iron mask,
inquisitor, everything anti-natural. He suffered under my "sallies": and
it was the worse for him when he did not perceive their drift. He is an
upright man; I have not seen marked meanness. One might build up a
respectable figure in negatives. I could add a row of noughts to the
single number he cherishes, enough to make a millionnaire of him; but
strike away the first, the rest are wind. Which signifies, that if you do
not take his estimate of himself, you will think little of his: negative
virtues. He is not eminently, that is to say, not saliently, selfish; not
rancorous, not obtrusive--tata-ta-ta. But dull!--dull as a woollen
nightcap over eyes and ears and mouth. Oh! an executioner's black cap to
me. Dull, and suddenly staring awake to the idea of his honour. I
"rendered" him ridiculous--I had caught a trick of "using men's phrases."
Dearest, now that the day of trial draws nigh--you have never questioned
me, and it was like you to spare me pain--but now I can speak of him and
myself.' Diana dropped her voice. Here was another confession. The
proximity of the trial acted like fire on her faded recollection of
incidents. It may be that partly the shame of alluding to them had
blocked her woman's memory. For one curious operation of the charge of
guiltiness upon the nearly guiltless is to make them paint themselves
pure white, to the obliteration of minor spots, until the whiteness being
acknowledged, or the ordeal imminent, the spots recur