the mark. After all, Tip"--and Ellen looked charming--"Jo and
I aren't real ladies, you know."

Sec.20

Albert was able to get off on the Friday afternoon, and arrived at
Ansdore in time for the splendours of late dinner and a bath in the new
bathroom. There was no doubt about it, thought he, that he was on a good
thing, whichever way it ended. She must have pots of money ...
everything of the very best ... and her sister marrying no end of a
swell--Ernley, who played for Sussex, and was obviously top-notch in
every other way. Perhaps he wouldn't be such a fool, after all, if he
married her. He would be a country gentleman with plenty of money and a
horse to ride--better than living single till, with luck, he got a rise,
and married inevitably one of his female acquaintances, to live in the
suburbs on three hundred a year.... And she was such a splendid
creature--otherwise he would not have thought of it--but in attraction
she could give points to any girl, and her beauty, having flowered late,
would probably last a good while longer....

But--. That night as he sat at his bedroom window, smoking a succession
of Gold Flake cigarettes, he saw many other aspects of the situation.
The deadly quiet of Ansdore in the night, with all the blackness of the
Marsh waiting for the unrisen moon, was to him a symbol of what his life
would be if he married Joanna. He would perish if he got stuck in a hole
like this, and yet--he thus far acknowledged her queenship--he could
never ask her to come out of it. He could not picture her living in
streets--she wouldn't fit--but then, neither would he fit down here. He
liked streets and gaiety and noise and picture-palaces.... If she'd been
younger he might have risked it, but at her age--thirteen years older
than he (she had told him her age in an expansive moment) it was really
impossible. But, damn it all! She was gorgeous--and he'd rather have her
than any younger woman. He couldn't make her out--she must see the folly
of marriage as well as he ... then why was she encouraging him like
this?--Leading him on into an impossible situation? Gradually he was
drifting back into his first queer moment of antagonism--he felt urged
to conquest, not merely for the gratification of his vanity nor even for
the attainment of his desire, but for the satisfaction of seeing her
humbled, all her pride and glow and glory at his feet, like a tiger-lily
in the dust.

The next day Joanna drove him