he her; in his tenderness now she saw a shade of
complacency, of self-confidence, which had not been of old,
and which exasperated her.

It was dusk. Anna was alone, and waiting for him to come back
from a bachelor dinner. She walked up and down in his study (the
room where the noise from the street was least heard), and
thought over every detail of their yesterday's quarrel. Going
back from the well-remembered, offensive words of the quarrel to
what had been the ground of it, she arrived at last at its
origin. For a long while she could hardly believe that their
dissension had arisen from a conversation so inoffensive, of so
little moment to either. But so it actually had been. It all
arose from his laughing at the girls' high schools, declaring
they were useless, while she defended them. He had spoken
slightingly of women's education in general, and had said that
Hannah, Anna's English protegee, had not the slightest need to
know anything of physics.

This irritated Anna. She saw in this a contemptuous reference to
her occupations. And she bethought her of a phrase to pay him
back for the pain he had given her. "I don't expect you to
understand me, my feelings, as anyone who loved me might, but
simple delicacy I did expect," she said.

And he had actually flushed with vexation, and had said something
unpleasant. She could not recall her answer, but at that point,
with an unmistakable desire to wound her too, he had said:

"I feel no interest in your infatuation over this girl, that's
true, because I see it's unnatural."

The cruelty with which he shattered the world she had built up
for herself so laboriously to enable her to endure her hard life,
the injustice with which he had accused her of affectation, of
artificiality, aroused her.

"I am very sorry that nothing but what's coarse and material is
comprehensible and natural to you," she said and walked out of
the room.

When he had come in to her yesterday evening, they had not
referred to the quarrel, but both felt that the quarrel had been
smoothed over, but was not at an end.

Today he had not been at home all day, and she felt so lonely
and wretched in being on bad terms with him that she wanted to
forget it all, to forgive him, and be reconciled with him; she
wanted to throw the blame on herself and to justify him.

"I am myself to blame. I'm irritable, I'm insanely jealous. I
will make it up with him, and we'll go away to the countr