To be the dragger-down, the destroyer of his usefulness; to be not the helpmate, but the clog; not the inspiring sky, but the cloud!  And because of a scruple which she could not understand!  She had no anger with that unintelligible scruple; but her fatalism, and her sympathy had followed it out into his future.  Things being so, it could not be long before he felt that her love was maiming him; even if he went on desiring her, it would be only with his body.  And if, for this scruple, he were capable of giving up his public life, he would be capable of living on with her after his love was dead!  This thought she could not bear.  It stung to the very marrow of her nerves.  And yet surely Life could not be so cruel as to have given her such happiness meaning to take it from her!  Surely her love was not to be only one summer’s day; his love but an embrace, and then—­for ever nothing!

This morning, fortified by despair, she admitted her own beauty.  He would, he must want her more than that other life, at the very thought of which her face darkened.  That other life so hard, and far from her!  So loveless, formal, and yet—­to him so real, so desperately, accursedly real!  If he must indeed give up his career, then surely the life they could live together would make up to him—­a life among simple and sweet things, all over the world, with music and pictures, and the flowers and all Nature, and friends who sought them for themselves, and in being kind to everyone, and helping the poor and the unfortunate, and loving each other!  But he did not want that sort of life!  What was the good of pretending that he did?  It was right and natural he should want, to use his powers!  To lead and serve!  She would not have him otherwise:  With these thoughts hovering and darting within her, she went on twisting and coiling her dark hair, and burying her heart beneath its lace defences.  She noted too, with her usual care, two fading blossoms in the bowl of flowers on her dressing-table, and, removing their, emptied out the water and refilled the bowl.

Before she left her bedroom the sunbeams had already ceased to dance, the grey filaments of light were gone.  Autumn sky had come into its own.  Passing the mirror in the hall which was always rough with her, she had not courage to glance at it.  Then suddenly a woman’s belief in the power of her charm came to her aid; she felt almost happy—­surely he must love her better than his conscience!  But that confidence was very tremulous, ready to yield to the first rebuff.  Even the friendly fresh—­cheeked maid seemed that morning to be regarding her with compassion; and all the innate sense, not of ‘good form,’ but of form, which made her shrink from anything that should disturb or hurt another, or make anyone think she was to be pitied, rose up at once within her; she became more than ever careful to show nothing even to herself.  So she passed the morning, mechanically doing the little usual things.  An