But he only said:
"Well, we shall see."
She retorted:
"Naturally if you've made up your mind, there's no more to be said."
He broke out viciously:
"I've not made up my mind. Don't I tell you I've only just begun to think about it?"
He was angry. And now that he actually was angry, he took an almost sensual pleasure in being angry. He had been angry before, though on a smaller scale, with less provocation, and he had sworn that he would never be angry again. But now that he was angry again, he gloomily and fiercely revelled in it.
Hilda silently folded up the shawl, and, putting it into a drawer of the wardrobe, shut the drawer with an irritatingly gentle click.... Click! He could have killed her for that click.... She seized a dressing-gown.
"I must just go and look at George," she murmured, with cool, clear calmness,--the virtuous, anxious mother; not a trace of coquetry anywhere in her.
"What bosh!" he thought. "She knows perfectly well George's door is bolted."