o act to her. Yet, knowing this, he could not cease, it
was not in his nature to cease, and he went on playing his part before
eyes that he knew were not imposed on but saw through all his disguises.
His old furtiveness of manner came back now when he talked over himself
and his affairs with his wife.

But even here he had his triumph, he was not at her mercy, he wielded a
power of his own; she recognised it with a smile. Like Aunt Maria,
whatever she might think of him she was bound to think constantly of him,
to be occupied with his doings and his success, to want to know what was
in his mind, yes, although it might be what she hated to find there. For
a while he had withdrawn himself from her, ceasing to tell of his life,
aims, and doings. If he sought thus to bring her to terms, she proved an
easy conquest; she surrendered at once, laughing at herself and at him.
"We're partners," she said, "and I must hear all about what you're doing.
I can't live without that, you know." And as the price of what she must
have she gave him friendship, sympathy, and comradeship, crossing his
wishes in nothing and never allowing herself to upbraid except in that
small tacit jeer of Mr. Foster's picture on the mantelpiece. For now she
believed herself to know the worst, and yet to be able to endure.

What sort of life promised to form itself out of this state of affairs?
For after all she was at the beginning of life, and he hardly well into
the middle of his. Neither of the two obvious things seemed possible;
devotion was out of the question, alienation was forbidden by her
unconquerable interest in him and his irrepressible instinct to hold her
mind, even if he could not chain her affections. Perhaps a third thing
was more usual still, tolerance. But for her at least neither was
tolerance the mood, for that is ill to build out of a mixture of intense
admiration and scornful contempt. These seemed likely to be the
predominant features of her life with her husband, sharing it so equally
that the one could never drive out the other nor yet come to fair terms
and, dividing the territory, live at peace.

"Perhaps they will some day," she thought, "when I get old and quiet."
She was neither old nor quiet now, and her youth cried out against so
poor a consolation. Then she told herself that she had the child, only to
reproach herself, a moment later, with the insincere repetition of a
commonplace. The child was not enough; had her nature