, driven there by her....

That she eventually grew calm again deserves to be set down as a tribute
to the organism of the human body.

That she was able to breathe, to move, to talk, to go through the
pretence of eating, was to her in the nature of a mild surprise. Life
went on, but it seemed to Honora in the hours following this scene that
it was life only. Of the ability to feel she was utterly bereft. Her
calmness must have been appalling: her own indifference to what might
happen now,--if she could have realized it,--even more so. And in
the afternoon, wandering about the house, she found herself in the
conservatory. It had been built on against the library, and sometimes,
on stormy afternoons, she had tea there with Hugh in the red-cushioned
chairs beside the trickling fountain, the flowers giving them an
illusion of summer.

Under ordinary circumstances the sound of wheels on the gravel would
have aroused her, for Hugh scarcely ever drove. And it was not until
she glanced through the open doors into the library that she knew that
a visitor had come to Highlawns. He stood beside the rack for the
magazines and reviews, somewhat nervously fingering a heavy watch charm,
his large silk hat bottom upward on the chair behind him. It was Mr.
Israel Simpson. She could see him plainly, and she was by no means
hidden from him by the leaves, and yet she did not move. He had come to
see Hugh, she understood; and she was probably going to stay where
she was and listen. It seemed of no use repeating to herself that
this conversation would be of vital importance; for the mechanism that
formerly had recorded these alarms and spread them, refused to work. She
saw Chiltern enter, and she read on his face that he meant to destroy.
It was no news to her. She had known it for a long, long time--in fact,
ever since she had came to Grenoble. Her curiosity, strangely enough--or
so it seemed afterwards--was centred on Mr. Simpson, as though he were
an actor she had been very curious to see.

It was this man, and not her husband, whom she perceived from the first
was master of the situation. His geniality was that of the commander
of an overwhelming besieging force who could afford to be generous. She
seemed to discern the cloudy ranks of the legions behind him, and they
encircled the world. He was aware of these legions, and their presence
completely annihilated the ancient habit of subserviency with which
in former years he had been