beauty. She had no comprehension whatever of beauty of the
body, and she could slash her beautiful lines to rags with hat-brims and
trimmings. Thank Heaven! a natural refinement, a natural timidity,
and her extremely slender purse kept her from the real Smithie
efflorescence! Poor, simple, beautiful, kindly limited Marion! Now that
I am forty-five, I can look back at her with all my old admiration
and none of my old bitterness with a new affection and not a scrap
of passion, and take her part against the equally stupid,
drivingly-energetic, sensuous, intellectual sprawl I used to be. I was
a young beast for her to have married--a hound beast. With her it was
my business to understand and control--and I exacted fellowship,
passion....

We became engaged, as I have told; we broke it off and joined again. We
went through a succession of such phases. We had no sort of idea what
was wrong with us. Presently we were formally engaged. I had a wonderful
interview with her father, in which he was stupendously grave
and H--less, wanted to know about my origins and was tolerant
(exasperatingly tolerant) because my mother was a servant, and
afterwards her mother took to kissing me, and I bought a ring. But
the speechless aunt, I gathered, didn't approve--having doubts of my
religiosity. Whenever we were estranged we could keep apart for days;
and to begin with, every such separation was a relief. And then I would
want her; a restless longing would come upon me. I would think of the
flow of her arms, of the soft, gracious bend of her body. I would lie
awake or dream of a transfigured Marion of light and fire. It was indeed
Dame Nature driving me on to womankind in her stupid, inexorable way;
but I thought it was the need of Marion that troubled me. So I always
went back to Marion at last and made it up and more or less conceded or
ignored whatever thing had parted us, and more and more I urged her to
marry me....

In the long run that became a fixed idea. It entangled my will and my
pride; I told myself I was not going to be beaten. I hardened to the
business. I think, as a matter of fact, my real passion for Marion had
waned enormously long before we were married, that she had lived it down
by sheer irresponsiveness. When I felt sure of my three hundred a year
she stipulated for delay, twelve months' delay, "to see how things would
turn out." There were times when she seemed simply an antagonist holding
out irritatingly against