Her eyes fell before the completeness of its contemptuous comprehension.
Yes—she had made her plans.... She knew—she had always known—that she could marry him, content him, and find her own happiness in doing so.... She could humour him: aid and abet him in his harmless, useless enterprises: lap him in little lies and call it management.... The tyrannous motherliness that is in every woman leaped within her at the idea. Of course she could manage Justin.... They would lead happy, well-fed lives.... They would die at last, placidly, and be buried, and that would be the end of them; because the spirit within them would have been stifled long ago....
She nodded deliberately. Yes, she could do that.... She knew herself capable of it.... She had killed one self already—and for that, too, she supposed, she was now being punished.... If she had stayed on in Paris, learning, growing, acquiring the self-mastery that is Art and the art that is self-mastery, she would have come back to Brackenhurst at last, full-grown, self-possessing, of account, good enough for Justin, the right woman for Justin....
But she had chosen to stultify herself.... She had sacrificed self-respect, common sense, common honesty sometimes, to what?... Not even to Justin, only to the mean, selfish fear of losing him.... Not love but fear had guided her in all her dealings.... She had wanted him for her own, her very own: she had encouraged every tendency, every fault, that would bind him to her.... How unfair, how cruelly unfair, she had been to Justin!... She pretended to love him—she did love him—but when had she lifted a finger to help him, to withstand him, as every human being needs to be withstood by those who love him best? No, for she would have been afraid—weakly, selfishly afraid of his displeasure, of his lack of comprehension, of putting herself in a position that he could misconstrue. Not love—fear. If Justin had his ways, his little faults—no, she would be honest with herself—the big faults that were sapping his whole character, she, and she alone, was to blame....
And yet—the unquenchable hopefulness of her temperament stirred within her like a sparrow chirping in a storm—couldn’t things be put right, even now?... They must get out of their groove.... They must help each other, she and Justin.... When two people loved each other—ah, but he did not love her! That was the reward of her folly.... He did not love her.... Her days rose up before her as if she were a drowning woman, as indeed, in a sense, she was, and for moments of an agony that was almost physical she clutched at this incident or that—such a look as he had once given her, such a word as he had said—and each was proved a straw. Kind he was—her friend, her ally—not her lover.... He had never been her lover.... He knew nothing of love.... Yet he was so ignorant, so pitifully ignorant, that he intended to marry her, to live his life with her and his children, and his comforts, and his collections: and he would never know, not even dimly in a dream, that something had died within him unborn....
“My fault,” she whispered to herself. “I didn’t know. I wouldn’t see. He’s clogged. It’s getting worse and worse. He’s like the deaf adder that stoppeth up her ears. And yet he’s still Justin inside. I’ll never believe he’s not big really. And if I marry him——”
What right had she to marry him? If he were a fool—oh, she cried writhing—a most blind and bitter fool—was she to build her selfish happiness upon his blindness and his loss?
She turned on herself again—
“It’s my fault. It was my chance. He was given to me. I’m the unprofitable servant, and from him shall be taken away——It has been taken away. He doesn’t love me. I haven’t been able to teach him. I didn’t know I had to. I thought—I thought he must too, when I loved him so. I’ve been blinder than Justin. I’ve been a wicked fool.”
“But to break with Justin—what good would it do? He wouldn’t care. I don’t count. It wouldn’t even be a shock.”