g
him nothing more than a nervous irritable experiment. He was uneasy,
like one given food to smell and not to taste, and for a while he had
not wanted to taste, and then curiosity began, and he wanted to, and he
also wanted to escape, and he could do neither.

Well, after he had married her, what then? Satisfy her whim and where
would he be? He would be nothing, neither what he had been nor what
other people were. This seemed to him, at times, her wish--a sort of
place between lying down and standing up, a cramped position, a slow
death. A curious woman.

This same evening he had looked at her attentively for the first time.
Her hair was rather pretty, though too mousy, yet just in the nape of
the neck, where it met the lawn of the collar it was very attractive.
She walked well for a little woman too.

Sometimes she would pretend to be lively, would run a little, catch
herself at it, as if she had not intended to do it, and calm down once
more, or creeping up to him, stroking his arm, talking to him, she would
walk beside him softly, slowly, that he might not step out, that he
would have to crawl across the carpet.

Once he had thought of trying her with honesty, with the truth of the
situation. Perhaps she would give him an honest answer, and he had
tried.

"Now Miss Freda--just a word--what are you trying to do. What is it you
want? What is there in me that can interest you? I want you to tell
me--I want to know--I have got to ask someone, and I haven't anyone to
ask but you."

And for a moment she almost relented, only to discover that she could
not if she had wished. She did not know always what she meant herself.

"I'll tell you," she said, hoping that this, somehow, might lead her
into the truth, for herself, if not for him, but it did not. "You are a
little nervous, you will get used to it--you will even grow to like it.
Be patient. You will learn soon enough that there is nothing in the
world so agreeable as climbing, changing."

"Well," he said trying to read her, "And then?"

"That's all, you will regret the stables in the end--that's all." Her
nostrils quivered. A light came into her eyes, a desire to defy, to be
defied.

And then on this last night he had done something terrible, he had made
a blunder. There had been a party. The guests, a lot of them, were
mostly drunk, or touched with drink. And he too had too much. He
remembered having thrown his arms about a tall woman, gowned in black
wit