he was discontented with these rhetorical
outbreaks. His dispositions to fall into them made him rather like a
nervous sepia that cannot keep its ink sac quiet while it is sitting for
its portrait. In the earnestness of his attempt at self-display he
vanished in his own outpourings.

He wanted now to reason with her simply and persuasively. He wanted to
say quietly impressive and convincing things in a low tone of voice and
make her abandon every possible view except his view. He walked now
slowly meditating the task before him, making a faint thoughtful noise
with his teeth, his head sunken in the collar of the motor overcoat he
wore because of a slight cold he had caught. And he had to be careful
about colds because of his constitutional defect. She too felt she had
much to say. Much too she had in her mind that she couldn't say, because
this strange quarrel had opened unanticipated things for her; she had
found and considered repugnances in her nature she had never dared to
glance at hitherto....

Sir Isaac began rather haltingly when they had reached a sandy,
ant-infested path that ran slantingly up among the trees. He affected a
certain perplexity. He said he did not understand what it was his wife
was "after," what she "thought she was doing" in "making all this
trouble"; he wanted to know just what it was she wanted, how she thought
they ought to live, just what she considered his rights were as her
husband and just what she considered were her duties as his wife--if,
that is, she considered she had any duties. To these enquiries Lady
Harman made no very definite reply; their estrangement instead of
clearing her mind had on the whole perplexed it more, by making her
realize the height and depth and extent of her possible separation from
him. She replied therefore with an unsatisfactory vagueness; she said
she wanted to feel that she possessed herself, that she was no longer a
child, that she thought she had a right to read what she chose, see what
people she liked, go out a little by herself, have a certain
independence--she hesitated, "have a certain definite allowance of my
own."

"Have I ever refused you money?" cried Sir Isaac protesting.

"It isn't that," said Lady Harman; "it's the feeling----"

"The feeling of being able to--defy--anything I say," said Sir Isaac
with a note of bitterness. "As if I didn't understand!"

It was beyond Lady Harman's powers to express just how that wasn't the
precise st