d! She had never known even that comparative calm.
It was not habit that had bound her to that dreadful old man, who
was the father of her body, but with whom her soul recognized no
kinship. Her life must have been an agony of self-renunciation, an
eternal effort not to be.

He doubted her wisdom; but he was not sure that he did not admire
her courage. That uncompromising attitude was more dignified than
the hesitations of weaker natures. When women set out with the bold
intention of living resolutely in the Whole, the Good, and the
Beautiful, they sometimes find themselves brought up sharply midway
at the threshold of the Good; and there they stand vacillating all
the time, or at the most content themselves now and then with a
terrified rush for the Beautiful and the Whole. They are fascinated
by all three and faithful to none. Frida Tancred scorned their
fatuous procedure. Balked of the best, she would never console
herself with half-measures and the second best; as for all lesser
values, there was something in her which would always mark her from
Mrs. Fazakerly and her kind. With Frida it was either the whole or
nothing; either four bare walls or the open road where there is no
returning.

She would go no way where the Colonel could not follow.

Durant, on his way to bed that night, saw something that told him
so much. Father and daughter stood with their backs to him at the
end of the long corridor. The Colonel was putting out the lights.
Frida had just nodded good night to him at her bedroom door, when
she turned impetuously and flung her arms round the little
gentleman. She pressed his head against her neck and held it there
an instant, a passion of remorse and tenderness in the belated
caress. The Colonel was, as it were, taken off his feet; he was
visibly embarrassed. Durant saw his eyes staring over her shoulder,
in their profound stupidity helpless and uncomprehending.

VIII

It was Sunday afternoon, and they had been taking tea with Mrs.
Fazakerly. This was the second time that Durant had had the
opportunity of studying Mrs. Fazakerly at home, of filling in the
little figure on its own appropriate background. The first thing
that struck him was that the background was not appropriate, or
rather that it was inadequate. Mrs. Fazakerly's drawing-room had an
air of uneasy elegance, of appearances painfully supported on the
thin edge of two hundred a year. It was furnished with a too
conspicuous care; th