it. The things she might have said--of its being her own
friend, in her own house--she did not much dwell upon, even to herself.
It was a more inner injury than that. Something in her that was
curiously against her had been called to life by him--and then he had
outraged what she had all along resented his finding in her. To give at
all had been so tremendous a thing--then to have it lightly held! It
outraged something that was simply outside the sphere of things
forgivable.

And that outraged thing had its own satisfaction. What he had called to
life in her and then, as it seemed, left there unwanted, what he had
made in her that was not herself--then left her with, became something
else, something that made her life. From the first until now--or at any
rate until two months ago when that boy came and forced her to look at
herself--the thing in her that had been outraged became something that
took the place of love, that was as the other pole of love, something
that yielded a satisfaction of its own, a satisfaction intense as the
things of love are intense, but cold, ordered, certain. It was the power
to hurt; the power to bring pain by simply doing nothing. It was not
tempestuously done; it had none of the uncertainty of passionate
feeling; it had the satisfaction of power without effort, of disturbing
and remaining undisturbed, of hurting and giving no sign. It was the
revenge of what was deeply herself for calling her out from herself, for
not wanting what was found in her that was not herself.

Stuart wanted her again; terribly wanted her, more than ever wanted her.
He loved and so could be hurt. He needed love and so could be given
pain. He thought she would give in; she knew that she would not. There
was power in that knowledge. And so she watched him suffer and herself
gained new poise. She did not consider how it was a sorry thing to fill
her life with. When, that night that was like being struck by lightning,
she came to know that the man to whom she had given--_she_--had turned
from her to another woman it was as if she was then and there sealed in.
She would never let herself leave again. Outraged pride blocked every
path out from self. She was shut in with her power to inflict pain. That
was all she had. And then that boy came and made her look at herself and
know that she was poor! That was why Stella Cutting could be talking of
how Marion Averley had "broken."

They were talking about it, of course; ab