spite of
herself, the one outlet of venom had brought the other.

"There is no question about leaving the children in beggary," said
Grandcourt, still in his low voice. "I advise you not to say things
that you will repent of."

"I am used to repenting," said she, bitterly. "Perhaps you will repent.
You have already repented of loving me."

"All this will only make it uncommonly difficult for us to meet again.
What friend have you besides me?"

"Quite true."

The words came like a low moan. At the same moment there flashed
through her the wish that after promising himself a better happiness
than that he had had with her, he might feel a misery and loneliness
which would drive him back to her to find some memory of a time when he
was young, glad, and hopeful. But no! he would go scathless; it was she
that had to suffer.

With this the scorching words were ended. Grandcourt had meant to stay
till evening; he wished to curtail his visit, but there was no suitable
train earlier than the one he had arranged to go by, and he had still
to speak to Lydia on the second object of his visit, which like a
second surgical operation seemed to require an interval. The hours had
to go by; there was eating to be done; the children came in--all this
mechanism of life had to be gone through with the dreary sense of
constraint which is often felt in domestic quarrels of a commoner kind.
To Lydia it was some slight relief for her stifled fury to have the
children present: she felt a savage glory in their loveliness, as if it
would taunt Grandcourt with his indifference to her and them--a secret
darting of venom which was strongly imaginative. He acquitted himself
with all the advantage of a man whose grace of bearing has long been
moulded on an experience of boredom--nursed the little Antonia, who sat
with her hands crossed and eyes upturned to his bald head, which struck
her as worthy of observation--and propitiated Henleigh by promising him
a beautiful saddle and bridle. It was only the two eldest girls who had
known him as a continual presence; and the intervening years had
overlaid their infantine memories with a bashfulness which Grandcourt's
bearing was not likely to dissipate. He and Lydia occasionally, in the
presence of the servants, made a conventional remark; otherwise they
never spoke; and the stagnant thought in Grandcourt's mind all the
while was of his own infatuation in having given her those diamonds,
which obliged h