She trembled with anger, impotence, and fear. For months, the thought of Albert was a torment to her. She might have married him. He would have been strange, a strange fish. But were it not better to take the strange leap, over into his element, than to condemn oneself to the routine of a job? He would have been curious and dishuman. But after all, it would have been an experience. In a way, she liked him. There was something odd and integral about him, which she liked. He was not a liar. In his own line, he was honest and direct. Then he would take her to South Africa: a whole new milieu. And perhaps she would have children. She shivered a little. No, not his children! He seemed so curiously cold-blooded. And yet, why not? Why not his curious, pale, half cold-blooded children, like little fishes of her own? Why not? Everything was possible: and even desirable, once one could see the strangeness of it. Once she could plunge through the wall of the aquarium! Once she could kiss him!
Therefore Miss Pinnegar’s quiet harping on the string was unbearable.
“I can’t understand that you disliked Mr. Witham so much?” said Miss Pinnegar.
“We never can understand those things,” said Alvina. “I can’t understand why I dislike tapioca and arrowroot—but I do.”
“That’s different,” said Miss Pinnegar shortly.
“It’s no more easy to understand,” said Alvina.
“Because there’s no need to understand it,” said Miss Pinnegar.
“And is there need to understand the other?”
“Certainly. I can see nothing wrong with him,” said Miss Pinnegar.
Alvina went away in silence. This was in the first months after she had given Albert his dismissal. He was at Oxford again—would not return to Woodhouse till Christmas. Between her and the Woodhouse Withams there was a decided coldness. They never looked at her now—nor she at them.