Their marriage, in this its new, its immaterial consummation, would not be unequal.  She would raise Walter.  That, of course, was what God had meant her to do all the time.  Never again could she look at her husband with eyes of mortal passion.  But her love, which had died, was risen again; it could still turn to him a glorified and spiritual face; it could still know passion, a passion immortal and supreme.

But it was an emotion of which by its very nature she could not bring herself to speak.  It could mean nothing to Walter in his yet unspiritual state.  She felt that when he came to her he would insist on some satisfaction, and there was no satisfaction that she could give to the sort of claim he would make.  Therefore she awaited his coming with nervous trepidation.

He came in as if nothing had happened.  He sank with every symptom of comfortable assurance into the opposite arm-chair.  And he asked no more formidable question than, “How’s your headache?”

“Better, thank you.”

“That’s all right.”

He did not look at her, but his eyes were smiling as if at some agreeable thought or reminiscence.  He had apparently assumed that Anne had recovered, not only from her headache, but from its cause.  To Anne, tingling with the tension of a nervous crisis, this attitude was disconcerting.  It seemed to reduce her and her crisis to insignificance.  She had expected him to be tingling too.  He had more cause to.

“Do you mind my smoking?  Say if you really do.”

She really did, but she forbore to say so.  Forbearance henceforth was to be part of her discipline.

He smoked contentedly, with half-closed eyes; and when he talked, he talked of the garden and of bulbs.

Of bulbs, after what he had discussed with Edith upstairs.  She would rather that he had asked his question, forced her to the issue.  That at least would have shown some comprehension of her state.  But he had taken the issue for granted, refused to face the immensity of it all.  She had had her first taste of sacrificial flames, and her spirit was prepared to go through fire to reach him.  And he presented himself as already folded and protected; satisfied with some inferior and independent secret of his own.

She felt that a little perturbation would have become him more than that impenetrable peace.

It would make it so difficult to raise him.

CHAPTER V

The bell of St. Saviour’s had ceased.  Over the open market-place the air throbbed with a thousand pulses from the dying heart of sound.  The great grey body of the Church was still; tower and couchant nave watched in their monstrous, motionless dominion, till the music stirred in them like a triumphant soul.

As they hurried over the open market-place, Anne realised with some annoyance that she was late again for the Wednesday evening service.  She dearly loved punctuality and order, and disliked to be either checked or hastened in her superb movements.  She disliked to be late for anything.  Above all she disliked standing on a mat outside a closed church door, in the middle of a General Confession, trying to surrender her spirit to the spirit of prayer, while Walter lingered, murmuring profane urbanities that claimed her as his own.