wn; but she had no real notion of what was in store for her.
She was all half-amused trepidation. The scuffled marriage-ceremony,
after which the registrar's clerk hurried to call for her for the first
time by her new name, was fun to her. It meant nothing: "I, Sarah,
Margaret Minto, call on these present...." It was all a part of a game,
a rather exciting game; and Gaga was no more to her after the ceremony
than he had been before it. He was a tall agitated grey creature, very
tremulous and muffled in his speech, and nothing like a husband. What
_was_ a husband? How did one feel towards a husband? All Sally knew was
that her husband was a stranger. He was one man out of millions of men,
no more and no less than the others. The thought that she was binding
herself to him for life did not trouble her. It did not enter her head.

Nevertheless, she felt triumph at her wedding ring, and clutched Gaga's
arm as they came out of the register office with their two
casually-acquired witnesses. They were instantly alone, and walking
along the street together in the autumn sunshine, married and excited,
but merely two strangers on their way to lunch. And yet that was not
quite all, because when they were seated at lunch Sally felt the
slightest sensation of flurry at Gaga's possessive stare. She returned
it boldly, quite unembarrassed; but across her mind flitted a knowledge
which came there of its own accord. He was a weak man, weak in his
possessiveness as he had been weak in his stammering; and the
possessiveness (which in a strong man might have excited her) gave Sally
an uncomfortable sense that Gaga might bother her. She had never
realised this. She saw in this instant that he would be jealous,
exacting, amorous. She did not love him, and the amorousness of the
unloved is a bore. Sally knew she could always deal with Gaga; but she
did not want a profusion of excited caresses from him. It was this
realisation that gave her a jerk of dismay. It was not that she shrank
from him. It was that with her cold little brain she imagined him in a
fever about her, fretful, tantalised by her coolness, rebuffed, sulky,
ineffably tedious.... As she knew all this her eyes darkened. It was all
very well to play with Gaga; but he was now her husband, and that meant
an association so constant that in future, so far from tempting him, she
would forever be engaged in battles with his exasperating, petty claims
to her person and her attention. He