they know the true circumstances,--that Mr. Ditmar desired her, was
perhaps in love with her--would be disturbed. Undoubtedly they would have
believed that she could "take care" of herself. She knew that matters
could not go on as they were, that she would either have to leave Mr.
Ditmar or--and here she baulked at being logical. She had no intention of
leaving him: to remain, according to the notions of her parents, would be
wrong. Why was it that doing wrong agreed with her, energized her, made
her more alert, cleverer, keying up her faculties? turned life from a
dull affair into a momentous one? To abandon Ditmar would be to slump
back into the humdrum, into something from which she had magically been
emancipated, symbolized by the home in which she sat; by the red-checked
tablecloth, the ugly metal lamp, the cherry chairs with the frayed seats,
the horsehair sofa from which the stuffing protruded, the tawdry pillow
with its colours, once gay, that Lise had bought at a bargain at the
Bagatelle.... The wooden clock with the round face and quaint landscape
below--the family's most cherished heirloom--though long familiar, was
not so bad; but the two yellowed engravings on the wall offended her.
They had been wedding presents to Edward's father. One represented a
stupid German peasant woman holding a baby, and standing in front of a
thatched cottage; its companion was a sylvan scene in which certain
wooden rustics were supposed to be enjoying themselves. Between the two,
and dotted with flyspecks, hung an insurance calendar on which was a huge
head of a lady, florid, fluffy-haired, flirtatious. Lise thought her
beautiful.

The room was ugly. She had long known that, but tonight the realization
came to her that what she chiefly resented in it was the note it
proclaimed--the note of a mute acquiescence, without protest or struggle,
in what life might send. It reflected accurately the attitude of her
parents, particularly of her father. With an odd sense of detachment, of
critical remoteness and contempt she glanced at him as he sat stupidly
absorbed in his newspaper, his face puckered, his lips pursed, and Ditmar
rose before her--Ditmar, the embodiment of an indomitableness that
refused to be beaten and crushed. She thought of the story he had told
her, how by self-assertion and persistence he had become agent of the
Chippering Mill, how he had convinced Mr. Stephen Chippering of his
ability. She could not think of the mil