,
laboriously at his ease, as though he had wanted to cheat the black oak
sideboard, the heavy curtains, the stiff-backed chairs, into the
belief of an unstained happiness. He was mistrustful of his wife's
self-control, unwilling to look at her and reluctant to speak, for it
seemed to him inconceivable that she should not betray herself by the
slightest movement, by the very first word spoken. Then he thought
the silence in the room was becoming dangerous, and so excessive as to
produce the effect of an intolerable uproar. He wanted to end it, as one
is anxious to interrupt an indiscreet confession; but with the memory of
that laugh upstairs he dared not give her an occasion to open her lips.
Presently he heard her voice pronouncing in a calm tone some unimportant
remark. He detached his eyes from the centre of his plate and felt
excited as if on the point of looking at a wonder. And nothing could be
more wonderful than her composure. He was looking at the candid eyes,
at the pure brow, at what he had seen every evening for years in that
place; he listened to the voice that for five years he had heard every
day. Perhaps she was a little pale--but a healthy pallor had always
been for him one of her chief attractions. Perhaps her face was rigidly
set--but that marmoreal impassiveness, that magnificent stolidity, as of
a wonderful statue by some great sculptor working under the curse of the
gods; that imposing, unthinking stillness of her features, had till then
mirrored for him the tranquil dignity of a soul of which he had thought
himself--as a matter of course--the inexpugnable possessor. Those were
the outward signs of her difference from the ignoble herd that feels,
suffers, fails, errs--but has no distinct value in the world except as a
moral contrast to the prosperity of the elect. He had been proud of her
appearance. It had the perfectly proper frankness of perfection--and
now he was shocked to see it unchanged. She looked like this, spoke like
this, exactly like this, a year ago, a month ago--only yesterday when
she. . . . What went on within made no difference. What did she think?
What meant the pallor, the placid face, the candid brow, the pure
eyes? What did she think during all these years? What did she think
yesterday--to-day; what would she think to-morrow? He must find out.
. . . And yet how could he get to know? She had been false to him, to that
man, to herself; she was ready to be false--for him. Always fa