conceived future, she would go to
bed. She was stunned by the immense dimensions of the row her simple act
of defiance had evoked.

And then came an incredible incident, so incredible that next day she
still had great difficulty in deciding whether it was an actuality or a
dream. She heard a little very familiar sound. It was the last sound she
would have expected to hear and she turned sharply when she heard it.
The paper-covered door in the wall of her husband's apartment opened
softly, paused, opened some more and his little undignified head
appeared. His hair was already tumbled from his pillow.

He regarded her steadfastly for some moments with an expression between
shame and curiosity and smouldering rage, and then allowed his body,
clad now in purple-striped pyjamas, to follow his head into her room. He
advanced guiltily.

"Elly," he whispered. "Elly!"

She caught her dressing-gown about her and stood up.

"What is it, Isaac?" she asked, feeling curiously abashed at this
invasion.

"Elly," he said, still in that furtive undertone. "_Make it up!_"

"I want my freedom," she said, after a little pause.

"Don't be _silly_, Elly," he whispered in a tone of remonstrance and
advancing slowly towards her. "Make it up. Chuck all these ideas."

She shook her head.

"We've got to get along together. You can't go going about just
anywhere. We've got--we've got to be reasonable."

He halted, three paces away from her. His eyes weren't sorrowful eyes,
or friendly eyes; they were just shiftily eager eyes. "Look here," he
said. "It's all nonsense.... Elly, old girl; let's--let's make it up."

She looked at him and it dawned upon her that she had always imagined
herself to be afraid of him and that indeed she wasn't. She shook her
head obstinately.

"It isn't reasonable," he said. "Here, we've been the happiest of
people----Anything in reason I'll let you have." He paused with an
effect of making an offer.

"I want my autonomy," she said.

"Autonomy!" he echoed. "Autonomy! What's autonomy? Autonomy!"

This strange word seemed first to hold him in distressful suspense and
then to infuriate him.

"I come in here to make it up," he said, with a voice charged with
griefs, "after all you've done, and you go and you talk of autonomy!"

His feelings passed beyond words. An extremity of viciousness flashed
into his face. He gave vent to a snarl of exasperation, "Ya-ap!" he
said, he raised his clenched fists and se