He had set
up his book as a barrier between them, and he was holding on to it for
dear life.
Rowcliffe moved irritably under Mary's eyes. She lowered them and
waited for the silken sound that should have told her that he had
turned a page.
And all the time she kept on saying to herself, "He _was_ thinking
about Gwenda. He's sorry for Alice because of Gwenda, not because of
me. It isn't _my_ people that he's good to."
The thought went round and round in Mary's mind, troubling its
tranquillity.
She knew that something followed from it, but she refused to see it.
Her mind thrust from it the conclusion. "Then it's Gwenda that he
cares for." She said to herself, "After all I'm married to him." And
as she said it she thrust up her chin in a gesture of assurance and
defiance.
In the chair that faced her Rowcliffe shifted his position. He crossed
his legs and the tilted foot kicked out, urged by a hidden savagery.
The clicking of Mary's needles maddened him.
He glanced at her. She was knitting a silk tie for his birthday.
She saw the glance. The fierceness of the small fingers slackened;
they knitted off a row or two, then ceased. Her hands lay quiet in her
lap.
She leaned her head against the back of the chair. Her grieved eyes
let down their lids before the smouldering hostility in his.
Her stillness and her shut eyes moved him to compunction. They
appeased him with reminiscence, with suggestion of her smooth and
innocent sleep.
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