it seemed to her that she was
really scrutinising his face for the first time, and it was as that of
a stranger. Not one detail had the stamp of familiarity: the whole
repelled her. What was the meaning now first revealed to her in that
countenance? The features had a massive regularity; there was nothing
grotesque, nothing on the surface repulsive; yet, beholding the face as
if it were that of a man unknown to her, she felt that a whole world of
natural antipathies was between it and her.

It was the face of a man by birth and breeding altogether beneath her.

Never had she understood that as now; never had she conceived so
forcibly the reason which made him and her husband and wife only in
name. Suppose that apparent sleep of his to be the sleep of death; he
would pass from her consciousness like a shadow from the field, leaving
no trace behind. Their life of union was a mockery; their married
intimacy was an unnatural horror. He was not of her class, not of her
world; only by violent wrenching of the laws of nature had they come
together. She had spent years in trying to convince herself that there
were no such distinctions, that only an unworthy prejudice parted class
from class. One moment of true insight was worth more than all her
theorising on abstract principles. To be her equal this man must be
born again, of other parents, in other conditions of life. 'I go back
to London a mechanical engineer in search of employment.' They were the
truest words he had ever uttered; they characterised him, classed him.

She had no claims to aristocratic descent, but her parents were
gentlefolk; that is to say, they were both born in a position which
encouraged personal refinement rather than the contrary, which expected
of them a certain education in excess of life's barest need, which
authorised them to use the service of ruder men and women in order to
secure to themselves a margin of life for life's sake. Perhaps for three
generations her ancestors could claim so much gentility; it was more
than enough to put a vast gulf between her and the Mutimers. Favourable
circumstances of upbringing had endowed her with delicacy of heart
and mind not inferior to that of any woman living; mated with an equal
husband, the children born of her might hope to take their place among
the most beautiful and the most intelligent. And her husband was a man
incapable of understanding her idlest thought.

He opened his eyes, looked at her bl