Now, moreover, he had begun to carry an aggrieved air—­an air which suggested that he pitied himself, that he considered that he had been unfairly dealt with, that he was entitled to assume the attitude of an innocent, injured victim of some blindly-dealt retribution.  What did that mean?  The only explanation which his wife could find for this symptomatic manifestation had its origin in the unhappy episode of which the memory was always on the threshold of her solitary thoughts, and, perhaps, of his.  She began to feel, with a certain compunction, that Dick must resent the circumstances which obliged him practically to sever his acquaintance with a man who had indisputably figured for so many years as his nearest friend; and she asked herself sometimes whether the circumstances in question did not, in effect, centre in herself.

Although the world was as yet far from being an open book for her, it was conceivable that Philip Rainham (even if one judged by appearances) had done nothing which need necessarily cast him beyond the pale of the unregenerate society of bachelordom.  It never occurred to her that, so far as she herself was concerned, a renewal of the old relation was among possible things:  if she had met Philip in public she would have made it clear to him that he was no longer on the same plane with her; that, from her point of view, he had practically ceased to exist.

It was only when she was alone, and pleasant, bitter memories of the old days recurred, that she owned to herself how hard it was to think of this intimacy as severed by a rule of moral conduct no less inexorable, and even more cruel, than death.  And yet there were moments—­and this was one of them—­when her husband’s bearing seemed more portentous, when the explanation she had found possible seemed no longer probable, and uncomfortable doubts as to the real meaning of his uneasiness assailed her mind.

A fragment of burning coal fell with a clatter into the grate:  she welcomed the interruption, and for the moment abandoned her thoughts, only, however, to enter upon them again by a different path.

“I wonder why I don’t hate him?” she asked herself, almost wistfully. (She was not now thinking of her husband.) “I ought to hate him, I suppose, and to pity her.  But I pity him, I think, and I hate—­her.”

The fire still crackled cheerfully, and she began to feel its heat oppressive; she let her hands fall with a gesture half of contempt, half of despair, and then rose abruptly, and walked into the darkness of the larger room, from the unshuttered windows of which she could see the dark bulk of her husband’s studio looming against the gray, smoke-coloured sky.