rant tone that he might have used about an objection to dining
out--

"It's no use making a fuss. There are plenty of brutes in the world
that one has to talk to. People with any _savoir vivre_ don't make a
fuss about such things. Some business must be done. You can't expect
agreeable people to do it. If I employ Lush, the proper thing for you
is to take it as a matter of course. Not to make a fuss about it. Not
to toss your head and bite your lips about people of that sort."

The drawling and the pauses with which this speech was uttered gave
time for crowding reflections in Gwendolen, quelling her resistance.
What was there to be told her about property? This word had certain
dominant associations for her, first with her mother, then with Mrs.
Glasher and her children. What would be the use if she refused to see
Lush? Could she ask Grandcourt to tell her himself? That might be
intolerable, even if he consented, which it was certain he would not,
if he had made up his mind to the contrary. The humiliation of standing
an obvious prisoner, with her husband barring the door, was not to be
borne any longer, and she turned away to lean against a cabinet, while
Grandcourt again moved toward her.

"I have arranged for Lush to come up now, while I am out," he said,
after a long organ stop, during which Gwendolen made no sign. "Shall I
tell him he may come?"

Yet another pause before she could say "Yes"--her face turned obliquely
and her eyes cast down.

"I shall come back in time to ride, if you like to get ready," said
Grandcourt. No answer. "She is in a desperate rage," thought he. But
the rage was silent, and therefore not disagreeable to him. It followed
that he turned her chin and kissed her, while she still kept her
eyelids down, and she did not move them until he was on the other side
of the door.

What was she to do? Search where she would in her consciousness, she
found no plea to justify a plaint. Any romantic illusions she had had
in marrying this man had turned on her power of using him as she liked.
He was using her as he liked.

She sat awaiting the announcement of Lush as a sort of searing
operation that she had to go through. The facts that galled her
gathered a burning power when she thought of their lying in his mind.
It was all a part of that new gambling, in which the losing was not
simply a _minus_, but a terrible _plus_ that had never entered into her
reckoning.

Lush was neither quite pleased