she imagined
herself to be saying, "I want to do my duty as a wife, I have to do my
duty as a wife. But it's so hard to say just where duty leaves off and
being a mere slave begins. I cannot believe that _blind_ obedience is
any woman's duty. A woman needs--autonomy." Then her mind went off for a
time to a wrestle with the exact meaning of autonomy, an issue that had
not arisen hitherto in her mind.... And as she planned out such
elucidations, there grew more and more distinct in her mind a kind of
idealized Mr. Brumley, very grave, very attentive, wonderfully
understanding, saying illuminating helpful tonic things, that made
everything clear, everything almost easy. She wanted someone of that
quality so badly. The night would have been unendurable if she could not
have imagined Mr. Brumley of that quality. And imagining him of that
quality her heart yearned for him. She felt that she had been terribly
inexpressive that afternoon, she had shirked points, misstated points,
and yet he had been marvellously understanding. Ever and again his words
had seemed to pierce right through what she had been saying to what she
had been thinking. And she recalled with peculiar comfort a kind of
abstracted calculating look that had come at times into his eyes, as
though his thoughts were going ever so much deeper and ever so much
further than her blundering questionings could possibly have taken them.
He weighed every word, he had a guarded way of saying "Um...."

Her thoughts came back to the dancing little figure in purple-striped
pyjamas. She had a scared sense of irrevocable breaches. What would he
do to-morrow? What should she do to-morrow? Would he speak to her at
breakfast or should she speak first to him?... She wished she had some
money. If she could have foreseen all this she would have got some money
before she began....

So her mind went on round and round and the dawn was breaking before she
slept again.

Sec.13

Mr. Brumley, also, slept little that night. He was wakefully mournful,
recalling each ungraceful incident of the afternoon's failure in turn
and more particularly his dispute with the ticket clerk, and thinking
over all the things he might have done--if only he hadn't done the
things he had done. He had made an atrocious mess of things. He felt he
had hopelessly shattered the fair fabric of impressions of him that Lady
Harman had been building up, that image of a wise humane capable man to
whom a woman wo