If he could have seen where she was! Meek, patient, quiet, her feet crossed, her hands in her lap, she was sitting in his aunt’s drawing-room, waiting for Mrs. Allanby’s return. Her face was inexpressive; it was a face incapable of expression, like her voice and her gestures. She was inarticulate, forever cut off from her fellows by this queer helplessness. Nothing that went on in her brain or her heart could ever be known by other people; she couldn’t show it, and she couldn’t tell it. She sat there now without the least shadow on her face of the dread and misery she was enduring.
She had hurried out ahead of Nick because she wanted to cry; because she was obliged to cry, and she was afraid that this inexplicable weeping would annoy him. She had run down the front steps and into the shelter of the basement door and had stood there sobbing frantically and silently for some time.... Oh, if she could only draw a great, free breath, and go where she wanted and do as she pleased, and have no duties and obligations toward anyone! If only, for one week even, she could behave as she liked, without implicating any other person in her behaviour! No: she was eternally bound to please people and to help people. She was mortally weary of it. The tyranny of the Humberts, the tyranny of Enid, the tyranny of Lawrence, were all about to be succeeded and swallowed up in a tyranny a thousand times more exacting and difficult. To satisfy Nick she would have to make herself over, and at thirty that is not at all easy or pleasant, even for a loving woman. For Nick she would have to keep young and cheerful, when she felt immeasurably old and discouraged. She would have to make a place for herself in his world, and to maintain it.
She dried her eyes and straightened her hat. She waited for a few moments in her dark little niche, looking out at the rain, and reflecting. She gave her attention to Miss Gosorkus, to Nick, to the aunt, to the cousin. And a very great resentment grew up in her, a stern and almost ferocious determination. She was going to get some profit from this situation; why not? Why should she always give, and sacrifice, and efface herself? She made up her mind to begin her new life under the most favourable possible circumstances, to eliminate all possible disadvantages. She was filled with anger against all these people, and a strong proletarian desire to retaliate, to repay their indifference, their ignorance of her life and of her heart, with arrogance, with bitterness. It was not a new feeling; she had had it often before, for Miss Amy, for Lawrence, for other people less important to her. It was the immeasurable resentment of a gentle and fine spirit against the inferior people who oppress it.
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
She heard the sound of a motor drawing up outside, then the bell rang, and she saw the parlour maid hurry through the hall to open the door.
“There’s a lady waiting to see you, ma’am,” she heard her say, and Caroline said:
“Ma gracious! At this time of night!”
Then, from where she sat, she could see the slim feet and ankles of Caroline ascending the stairs, and in a moment Mrs. Allanby entered.
She actually turned pale, perhaps for the first time in her life.