While she was standing thus, half dressed, Osborn came in.

She swung round upon him, hands raised in the act of smoothing her
hair, and there was something in her face which made him halt. He
looked at her uncertainly.

She could not have helped saying if she would:

"You startled me. I didn't hear you knock."

He had not knocked. The puzzle in his head increased. Why should he
knock? His mouth opened and shut again. He came forward hesitatingly.

"I--I--what do you mean, darling?" he began. "I wanted to bring you
these."

His coming thus was to her symbolic of legal intrusion upon all her
future privacy. In that year, privacy had been one of the things she
enjoyed most, after the edge was off the first loneliness. She found
it hard to relinquish her right to it. She stepped into the frock
quickly, and drew it upwards before he reached her. His hands were
full of little things, which he cast in a hurry upon the
dressing-table. She knew that he wanted to touch, to fondle her. She
slipped her arms swiftly into the sleeves and fastened the first hook
across her breast; in her eyes a shrinking antagonism unveiled itself.

She uttered hurriedly: "We have to be very quiet; the children are
asleep."

He cast a cursory glance towards the screened corner.

"They're all right; they can't see or hear or anything else. Come here
and let me put this hair-band thing on."

She stood a dressing-table length away, fumbling with the hooks, her
eyes fixed on him.

"I have lots of things to say to you," she began suddenly.

"Say them to-morrow," he replied in his old way.

"No," she said, "they have to be said to-night--not this minute,
perhaps, but presently."

She was in Osborn's arms again, and he was touching her throat, her
hair, and the velvet texture of her cheek.

"You've got fatter again," he was saying delightedly; "you look just
like the little girl I married, only there's something bigger about
you; firmer. There's no doubt marriage stiffens a woman up. That's it,
isn't it? You're sure of yourself."

She gazed full into his eyes. "Yes. I'm sure of myself; absolutely
sure."

"You always had ripping hair; but I think it's got thicker, hasn't it?
It's springy, sort of electric."

"It used to be thick; and then it was thin; and now it's thick again,
I think."

"You do it differently."

"One changes with the styles."

"_You_ would, you up-to-date thing. Now, you're going to look at
these souvenirs of