Back in the room, Sally was immediately again embraced. She did not now
trouble about Gaga; she was glad of his arms around her, and his breast
upon which she could lay her head. Married ... river ... married ...
river ... ran her thoughts. And she turned away from Gaga to the
washstand, and poured cold water from the ewer into the basin.

"Let me alone...." she laughingly said. "Be ... get away.... I'm going
to wash."

And when the water touched her face Sally was alert once more, cleansed
and freshened. With tea before her she could face even marriage and that
drearily-flowing river and the hideous mud, so thick and so oozily
sinister.

iii

On the following day Sally, dogged everywhere by Gaga, was perfectly
aware of her contempt for him. Twenty-four hours had been enough to show
her the exacting and irritating characteristics of her new husband. Did
she stir, he looked up; his hand was ever ready for her hand; those
chocolate eyes were eternally suffused with a love that moved Sally to
impatience. He did not even amuse her by his calf-like pursuit. All that
was ruthless in her rose up and sneered at his weakness and his timid
assurance, which had the same effect as one of those horrible streamers
of cobweb that catch the face as one walks unwarily along a dusky lane.
Only her native resoluteness enabled her to show Gaga a false patience.
Only her insensitiveness made his constant caress endurable. Sally
blinked sometimes at his grabbing sentimentality; but she already began
to slip neatly aside and avoid his carefully-planned contacts. She was
not yet hard or perverse.

And while Gaga lay down in the afternoon, as she found he was in the
habit of doing, in order that his physical strength might last through
the day, Sally found the empty drawing-room and with often-strained ears
began the difficult task which she had set herself. Below her was the
thick, powerful current of the now sinking river, laden with refuse
which flowed backwards and forwards past the hotel; and upon the windows
and casual brightnesses of the tall houses on the hill across the river
she could see the crystal sparkling of reflected sunshine. She had a
feeling that all about Penterby was open green country, sometimes flat,
but always in the distance crowned and adorned with hills; and she knew
the brown of the river and the mud, and the green slime which decorated
the wall opposite. It was unforgettable. She would always think of it.