But her resentment had remained mute. The years had proved to her, as much as proof was possible, that Aubrey was no hypocrite and that his attitude toward such things was due to his being a high-minded, decent man. He loved her. But in his own way. He explained to her, "Most marriages are ruined because people are lead astray by sex. Sex is a duty. I don't think it's any more moral for married people to wallow in sex than it is for unmarried people. Sex has an object beyond itself which people ignore. It is a means to an end—children." And they had gone on for eight years living up to these standards. But they had no children. Fanny was willing to acquiesce in her husband's ideals, since she had to, in everything except about children. She didn't want any.
Fanny had accepted his version of the thing and lived by it. There were some rewards. She managed to derive a dubious satisfaction during their infrequent hours of passion from the knowledge that he was a famous man. She also found a source of secret excitement in his austerity and virtue. The fact that he was so high-minded and aloof from any thought of sex offered a piquant contrast to occasions when he condescended to be her lover. Such occasions were for Fanny far from austere and high-minded. She allowed the keen sensuality of her nature free reign. Aubrey's noble attitude served to inspire her with a sense of guilt, as if their relations were really as indecent and immoral as he contended sex to be. And the idea of their being indecent and immoral heightened her enjoyment of them.
She wondered at many things about Aubrey. Despite his aversion to sex, (she did not think of it as an aversion but as a high-mindedness,) he was yet very attentive to women. Not in the way that most men were attentive. But chivalrously. He had become during their married life a veritable Chesterfield and Sir Raleigh. It was not only his manner—his observation of little rules of conduct such as rising when a woman entered or helping her on with her wraps, or assisting her to pull up her chair at the table or opening doors or any of the thousand niceties—that marked his attitude toward women. It was also his ideas. He frequently discussed women and his point of view was more chivalrous than most men's. He said that he believed in the fineness of women. That a woman was a pure, beautiful soul. And he was quick to resent insults to women, even general insults which sought to reflect upon woman's purity as a whole or to make her out a scheming sexual animal.
Fanny was proud of his chivalrous tone. It distinguished him and she did not resent the fact that it interested women. She had never been jealous of Aubrey. And she had gradually accustomed herself to his high-mindedness. She would have liked abandoned caresses and embraces. But these had never been forthcoming, even on their honeymoon long ago. And she had given up dreaming of them—for herself. She dreamed about them now in connection with others and her mind, colored by unsatisfied desires, indulged itself in the luxurious and lascivious details of her suspicions of others.
She sat watching Henrietta as Mr. Mackay talked to her and despite an effort to control her thought, she began to wonder what they had been doing alone in the apartment before she and Aubrey came. He had probably taken her hand and pulled her to him, put his arms around her and Henrietta, overcome with a sudden passion, had probably flung her arms about his shoulders and given him her lips wildly. And just as they were standing deliriously embraced like that, the bell had probably rung and Henrietta had jumped away and grabbed her sewing. She had come to the door with her sewing in her hand and....
Fanny smiled at the colorless and unsuspecting Henrietta. Her sense of humor had done for her what her sense of justice had failed to do. It controlled her fancies. To imagine Henrietta giving her lips wildly to anybody, particularly the red-faced Mr. Mackay, was ludicrous. Poor Henrietta with her two noisy children and her interminable sewing. She didn't envy her the children. Thank Heaven, despite Aubrey's high-minded attitude toward sex as a distasteful mechanism through which the race continued itself, they had had no children.
There was something pitiful about Henrietta. She was so dumb. And even when she dressed up and powdered and frilled, she always seemed tired. A stranger might think she was an invalid just recovered from some serious illness.... Henrietta was probably like Aubrey about "those things". Very high-minded and aloof.
Mr. Mackay and Aubrey were talking about advertising now. They always did this soon or late. And they usually quarreled because Aubrey was inclined to insist that his end of the business—the preparation of copy and ad. material—was as important as Mr. Mackay's end. Mr. Mackay was in charge of the salesmen.
She hadn't wanted to call on her brother. But Aubrey insisted. There was a deal on. The city was going to do a lot of advertising and the firm of Mackay-Gilchrist wanted the job. Basine could help them pull wires.