ntleman of
respectable mentality, a sufficiency of money, and a surplus of
leisure--Good things? We would say so if we dared, for we are growing
old and suspicious of all appearances, and we do not easily recognize
what is bad or good. Beyond the social circumference we are confronted
with a debatable ground where good and bad are so merged that we cannot
distinguish the one from the other. To her husband's mental
attainments (from no precipitate, dizzy peaks did he stare; it was only
a tiny plain with the tiniest of hills in the centre) Mrs. Morrissy
extended a courtesy entirely unmixed with awe. For his money she
extended a hand which could still thrill to an unaccustomed
prodigality, but for his leisure (and it was illimitable) she could
find no possible use.

The quality of permanency in a transient world is terrifying. A
permanent husband is a bore, and we do not know what to do with him.
He cannot be put on a shelf. He cannot be hung on a nail. He will not
go out of the house. There is no escape from him, and he is always the
same. A smile of a certain dimension, moustaches of this inevitable
measurement, hands that waggle and flop like those of automata--these
are his. He eats this way and he drinks that way, and he will continue
to do so until he stiffens into the ultimate quietude. He snores on
this note, he laughs on that, dissonant, unescapeable, unchanging.
This is the way he walks, and he does not know how to run. A
predictable beast indeed! He is known inside and out, catalogued,
ticketed, and he cannot be packed away.

Mrs. Morrissy did not yet commune with herself about it, but if her
grievance was anonymous it was not unknown. There is a back-door to
every mind as to every house, and although she refused it house-room,
the knowledge sat on her very hearthstone whistling for recognition.

Indeed, she could not look anywhere without seeing her husband. He was
included in every landscape. His moustaches and the sun rose together.
His pyjamas dawned with the moon. When the sea roared so did he, and
he whispered with the river and the wind. He was in the picture but
was out of drawing. He was in the song but was out of tune. He
agitated her dully, surreptitiously, unceasingly. She questioned of
space in a whisper, "Are we glued together?" said she. There was a bee
in a flower, a burly rascal who did not care a rap for any one: he sat
enjoying himself in a scented and gorgeous palace, and in him she
confi