"There's no need: Mrs. Samson is coming, I've promised to have her every day."
"Samson is my man."
"I know." Lines were beginning to show between her brows. "George, nobody need be told."
Again he straightened himself, but now he seemed to threaten with his bulk. "I'd feel safer if you weren't so secret."
"Can't you trust me?" she said. "How often must I ask you that?"
He had a slow way of flushing to the eyes. "I'm sorry," he said humbly, as he used his thumb nail on a plate.
She was irritated by his meekness, for now he was not childlike. She felt his thoughts circling round her in a stubborn determination to possess, even, if it must be, through his own submission, but she hated him less for that than for his looks, which, at that moment, were without definite sex. He looked neither man nor woman: his knees were slightly bent; his face was red, and his nail still scraped patiently on the plate. Since she must marry him, she would have him as masculine as he could be, so that therein she might find shelter from the shame of being yoked to him.
Her cheeks grew cold in amazement at her own thought, and her mind shrank from it. She felt that all the blood in her body was dropping to her feet, and they were heavy as she moved towards the door.
"Are you going?" he asked her.
"I must watch for the doctor."