window at the rain and at the sea.

"When are you going back?" she asked.

"Well, the rooms are taken until to-morrow, so he wants me to stop. He's
going back to-night."

"And then you're thinking of going to Sheffield?"

"Yes."

"Are you fit to start work?"

"I'm going to start."

"You've really got a place?"

"Yes--begin on Monday."

"You don't look fit."

"Why don't I?"

She looked again out of the window instead of answering.

"And have you got lodgings in Sheffield?"

"Yes."

Again she looked away out of the window. The panes were blurred with
streaming rain.

"And can you manage all right?" she asked.

"I s'd think so. I s'll have to!"

They were silent when Morel returned.

"I shall go by the four-twenty," he said as he entered.

Nobody answered.

"I wish you'd take your boots off," he said to Clara.

"There's a pair of slippers of mine."

"Thank you," she said. "They aren't wet."

He put the slippers near her feet. She left them there.

Morel sat down. Both the men seemed helpless, and each of them had a
rather hunted look. But Dawes now carried himself quietly, seemed to
yield himself, while Paul seemed to screw himself up. Clara thought she
had never seen him look so small and mean. He was as if trying to
get himself into the smallest possible compass. And as he went about
arranging, and as he sat talking, there seemed something false about him
and out of tune. Watching him unknown, she said to herself there was
no stability about him. He was fine in his way, passionate, and able to
give her drinks of pure life when he was in one mood. And now he looked
paltry and insignificant. There was nothing stable about him. Her
husband had more manly dignity. At any rate HE did not waft about with
any wind. There was something evanescent about Morel, she thought,
something shifting and false. He would never make sure ground for any
woman to stand on. She despised him rather for his shrinking together,
getting smaller. Her husband at least was manly, and when he was beaten
gave in. But this other would never own to being beaten. He would shift
round and round, prowl, get smaller. She despised him. And yet she
watched him rather than Dawes, and it seemed as if their three fates lay
in his hands. She hated him for it.

She seemed to understand better now about men, and what they could or
would do. She was less afraid of them, more sure of herself. That
they were not the small egoists she