d the satisfactions of sense. It reproduced
reality so infallibly, so solidly, so completely, that it took reality's
place; it made him unconscious of his wife's existence and of the things
that went on beneath him in the ground-floor sitting-room.

Yet he was not and had never been indifferent to life itself. He
approached it, not with precaution or prejudice or any cold discretion,
but with the supreme restraint of passion on guard against its own
violence. If he had given himself to it, what a grip it would have had
on him, what a terrible, destructive grip; if, say, he had found his
mate; if he had married a woman, who, exulting in life, would have drawn
him into it.

Rose had not drawn him in. She had done nothing assailing and
destructive. She was, in some respects, the most admirable wife a man
bent on solitude could have selected. The little thing had never got in
his way. She was no longer disturbing to the intellect, nor agitating to
the heart; and she satisfied, sufficiently, the infrequent craving of
his senses. Up till now he would hardly have known that he was married;
it had been so easy to ignore her.

But to-day she had been forced on his attention. The truth about Rose
had been presented to him very plainly and boldly by Prothero, by the
doctor, by Mrs. Eldred and by Jane. It was the same naked truth that in
his novels he himself presented with the utmost plainness and boldness
to the British public. His genius knew no other law but truth to Nature,
trust in Nature, unbroken fidelity to Nature. And now it was Nature that
arraigned his genius for its frustration of her purposes in Rose. His
genius had made Rose the victim of its own incessant, inextinguishable
lust and impulse to create.

Eleven o'clock struck and he had not written a line. Through his window
he heard the front door open and Rose's little feet on the pavement, and
Rose's voice calling into the darkness her old call, "Puss--Puss--Puss.
Minny--Min--Min--Minny. Puss--Puss--Puss."

He sighed. He had realized for the first time that he was married.

XXIV

Nina kept her promise, although Prothero protested that he saw no reason
why he should be taken to see Laura Gunning. He was told that he need
not be afraid of Laura. She was too small, Nina said, to do him any
harm. Refusing to go and see Laura was like refusing to go and see a
sick child. Ultimately, with extreme unwillingness, he consented.

Laura was the poorest of them