anger that he had not bound her to him by his need. He would manage
without her very well, she thought, and hardened herself a little; but
hard or soft, the result of her fierce thinking was the same. She had
the picture of Miriam like a broken flower, lying limp and crumpled on
the floor, and she believed she had done well in selling herself to save
that beauty. It was the only thing to do, and Zebedee would know. These
words she repeated many times.

But she went beyond that conclusion on her own path. She had married
George, and that was ugly, but life had to be lived and it must be
beautiful; it could not be so long that she should fail to make it
beautiful: fifty years, perhaps. She beat her hands together. She could
surely make it beautiful for fifty years.

But at night, when she waited for George, she trembled, for she knew
that her determination meant ultimate surrender.

He came on the fourth night. She gave him half a smile, and with a thin
foot she pushed his chair into its place, but he did not sit down. He
stood with his hands clasped behind him, his head thrust forward, and
having glanced at him in that somewhat sulky pose, she was shaken by
inward laughter. Men and women, she reflected, were such foolish things:
they troubled over the little matters of a day, a year, or a decade, and
could not see how small a mark their happiness or sorrow made in the
history of a world that went on marching.

She bent over her sewing while she thought, and she might have forgotten
his presence if a movement had not blocked the light.

"George, please, I can't see."

"I beg your pardon."

"I wish you would sit down. It isn't comfortable like this."

"All right." He sank down heavily and sighed.

She lifted her head quickly and showed him her puckered face. "Are you
still so cross?"

"I--don't know. I've been miserable enough," he said, but he had to
smile on her.

She was astonished that he should have no difficulty in speaking of
himself, and she looked at him in this surprised consideration before
she tempted him to say more.

"Why?" she asked.

"You wouldn't understand."

"I might."

"How much I wanted you."

She tapped her thimble against her teeth. "It's so absurd," she said
softly.

"Eh?"

She hated him to say that, and she frowned a little as he asked, "Why is
it absurd?"

"Because you don't know me at all."

"That's nothing to do with it." He stood up and kicked a protruding
coal. "