Then she discovered, without any explanations, that he had done with her.  He was paternal and kind, but she had become just nobody; and her aunt was very angry, saying that she had played her cards badly instead of well.  That was about the time that Dale had been two years at Portsmouth.  She liked Dale from the first because he was honest and good, and because he seemed to offer her an escape from an extremely difficult position.  But if she had been a nasty girl, she would not have made such a marriage; instead of being anxious to secure respectability, however humble, she would have followed Auntie’s suggestions and looked out for another protector instead of for a husband.  And she had wanted to tell Dale the whole truth; but there again she had been overruled.  Auntie forbade her to utter a whisper or hint of it; she said that Mr. Barradine would never pardon such a betrayal of his confidence, whereas if a properly discreet silence were preserved he would give the bride a suitable wedding present, as well as push the fortunes of the bridegroom.  “Besides,” said Aunt Petherick, “a nice hash you’ll make of it if you go and label yourself damaged goods before you’re fairly started.  Why, it would be just giving Dale the whip-hand over you for the rest of your days.”  Looking back at it all, Mavis felt that this argument was irrefutable.

After marriage she began to love Will most truly and devotedly—­but not for his embraces, which did not even stir her pulses, which only made her tenderly happy that she could make him happy.  Now after eleven years her feeling toward him was all unselfish and beautiful, a gentle and deep affection, without a taint of anything that one would not call really lady-like.  The passion and boisterousness were all on his side.

And thinking of things that she had never told Will, she wondered if this calmness of temperament, or perhaps unusual failure in response, was but another fatal consequence of the Barradine slavery.  If so, what cause she had to hate and curse him!  The episode with him was simply an irksomeness:  it had frozen her instead of warming her, checked her expansion, and perhaps, breaking the cycle of normal development, made her imperfect as a woman.

Perhaps this was the real reason why she had remained childless.  She represented completed womanhood in this respect at least, that she desired to be a mother.  The possession of children was the one thing that made her envious of other women.  The idea of having a child of her own made her almost faint with longing—­a baby to nurse, a little burden to wheel about in a perambulator, a companion to prattle to her all day while Will was busy down-stairs.  If the hope of such joy had been taken from her by Mr. Barradine, oh, how immeasureably great was her cause for hatred!