g or was going
to do. She had suffered, she had concealed her suffering, she had tried
vulgarly to pay Fritz out, she had failed. At the critical moment she
had played the woman after he had played the man. He had thrashed the
intruder whom she was using as a weapon, and she had bathed his wounds,
made much of him, idealised him. She had done what any uneducated street
woman would have done for "her man." And now she had suddenly come to
feel as if there had always been an emptiness in her life, as if Fritz
never had, never could fill it. The abruptness of the onset of this new
feeling confused her. She did not know that a woman could be subject
to a change of this kind. She did not understand it, realise what it
portended, what would result from it. But she felt that, for the moment,
at any rate, she could not get up any excitement about Fritz, his
feelings, his doings. Whenever she thought of him she thought of his
blundering stupidity, his blindness, sensuality and egoism. No doubt she
loved him. Only, to-day, she did not feel as if she loved him or anyone.
Yet she did not feel dull. On the contrary, she was highly strung,
unusually sensitive. What she was most acutely conscious of was a
sensation of lonely excitement, of solitary expectation. Fritz fidgeted
about the house, and the fact that he did so gave her no more concern
than if a little dog had been running to and fro. She did not want him
to tell her what was the matter. On the other hand, she did want him not
to tell her. Simply she did not care.

He said nothing. Perhaps something in her look, her manner, kept him
dumb.

When they were in the motor on the way to Manchester House, he said:

"I bet you'll cut out everybody."

"Oh, there are all sorts of stars."

"Well, mind you put 'em all out."

It was evident to her that for some reason or other he was particularly
anxious she should shine that afternoon. She meant to. She knew she was
going to. But she had no desire to shine in order to gratify Fritz's
egoism. Probably he had just had a quarrel with Miss Schley and
wanted to punish her through his wife. The idea was not a pretty one.
Unfortunately that circumstance did not ensure its not being a true one.

"Mind you do, eh?" reiterated her husband, giving the steering wheel a
twist and turning the car up Hamilton Place.

"I shall try to sing well, naturally," she replied coldly. "I always
do."

"Of course--I know."

There was something almost