sivity. To be able to take definite
action instead of having merely to put up with the thing day by day was,
when it came, a blessing to both of them, although it took what might
conventionally have been assumed to be such a terrible shape. They were
both very honest people, their strongest quality in common, and kept up
no pretence even in outward appearance, unlike most people who keep it
up even to themselves. They hardly spoke of the matter beyond making the
necessary arrangements, and when Vassie had a fit of weeping in her room
it was for the mother she remembered from her childhood, the mother of
stormy tendernesses that nevertheless were sweet to her at the time, and
whom she thought of now instead of letting her mind dwell on the woman
who had been growing more and more distorted these last few years.

Nevertheless the fabric of their daily lives was torn up, and Ishmael
began to see that things could not go on as they were. Vassie badly
needed not only a rest, but a complete change and new interests; she had
been living a life of strain lately, and her vigorous personality,
unaccustomed to being swamped in that of others and only forced to it by
her strong will, began to assert its needs. For the first time her bloom
showed as impaired--something of her radiance had fled. Ishmael saw it,
and knew that her affection for him would prevent her telling him as
long as flesh could bear it. A Vassie grown fretful was the last thing
he wanted, and her marred bloom hurt him; he always, in some odd way,
looked on Vassie as a superior being even when he saw her little faults
in style--so much more devastating than faults of character--most
clearly. It somehow got itself settled that Vassie was to take a
charming though impoverished maiden lady, whom the Parson had known for
years in Penzance, as chaperon, and was to go and spend the summer at
some big seaside place such as she delighted in. Vassie seemed to glow
afresh at the mere notion, at the feel of the crisp bank notes which
Ishmael gave her, and which represented all the old ambitions that
swelled before her once more like bubbles blown by some magic pipe. She
departed in a whirl of new frocks and sweeping mantles and feathery
hats, and a quietness it had never known settled upon Cloom.

For the first few days, even a week or so, Ishmael enjoyed it. The
scenes with Annie had been violent enough to fray the nerves more than
he knew, but they had done him the service