She listened with eager interest while he gave her a
picturesque version of the exciting scene at the club. Edith hardly
realized how little of the old familiarity there was now between
herself and Arthur. It was his nature to be communicative. He enjoyed
talking, partly from his pleasure in words and the delight he found in
effective and picturesque phrasing, and partly because it pleased his
vanity to excite attention and to produce striking effects. He had an
inveterate habit of telling his most intimate and inner experiences in
some sort of fantastic disguise. The very vain man is apt to be either
extremely reticent or very communicative. The only secrets which Fenton
kept well were those which his vanity guarded. As desire for admiration
and attention provoked him to continual revelations, so the fear that
the disclosure of a secret would react to his disadvantage could cause
him to be silent.
From the feeling that his wife disapproved of much that he told her had
grown up in Fenton's mind, at first, an irritated desire to shock and
startle her as much as possible. As there came into his life, however,
things which he knew she would view not only with disapproval but with
abhorrence, and especially since his entanglement with Ninitta, he had
grown constantly more guarded in his speech. Edith felt keenly the loss
of the old familiar talks, though, womanlike, she invented a thousand
excuses to prevent herself from believing in the growing estrangement
of her husband.
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