"In the summer house, then. For a few minutes. We can't part like this."
"Yes, I'll come."
Along the hall from the foot of the stairs sounded Richard's imperious, impatient voice. "I say, Courtney! Do hurry!"
"I can't go for a walk with him now," she said, half to herself. "I'll make some excuse." She looked at Basil, he at her. In their eyes was a sadness beyond words and tears. And what would it be when he was really gone? "I mustn't linger here—I mustn't!" she cried. "And don't come near me when he's around. I can't control myself."
They clung together for an instant, then she fled.
She made vague household matters her excuse for not taking the walk. She did not see Richard alone until late that afternoon. She was in her and Winchie's big bathroom, which she also used as a dressing room. As she sat at the dressing table there, in petticoat and corset cover, doing her finger nails, he walked in. "May I come?" said he, already in the middle of the room.
She glanced at him, or, rather, in his direction, by way of the mirror and went on with her polishing. But she was not resentful of the scant courtesy of this intrusion. In the beginning of their married life she, through love, had confirmed him in his life-long habit of considering only himself and of expecting himself to be considered first. Now, indifference was making her as compliant as love had made her. And it was just as well. An attempt to assert herself would have seemed to him a revolt which pride and duty made it imperative for him to put down. The man a woman has spoiled through love, or the woman a man has spoiled, must be born again to be got back within bounds.
"You don't ask how I happen to be home so early—nearly an hour before supper," said he.
"It is early," replied she absently.
"I've made up my mind not to kill myself with work and no exercise, and to give more time to my family. I had a chance to look at myself—at my way of life—from the outside while I was in the East. And I'm going to try to live a more human life, though it'll not be easy to work less, when Gallatin's leaving me."