But her loathing of him was after all only horror of herself. If he had given her a look of acceptance she would have become one with him. Then it would have been impossible to see him so separately. She wanted to explain the horror to him. If he had known her thoughts he could not have endured them, and he would have saved them both.
But he was separate and satisfied in himself. "Julia," he said in a low voice, "Laurence Farley is a remarkable person. There is something in the dignity of his reserve that puts us to shame. My God, what a tragedy he is! He interests me tremendously. I'm grateful to you for letting me know him."
Julia felt hateful that he presumed to tell her this. She had always spoken gratefully of Laurence. She had much pride in her pain in never finding excuses for herself.
"He isn't sophisticated in our sense," Dudley said, "but he makes me feel that there is something puerile and immature in both of us."
Julia said, in a hard voice, "I don't think I have ever failed in appreciation of Laurence." Suddenly she realized that both these men were strangers to her, that she loved and wanted only herself. Her despair was so complete that it relieved her, and she could scarcely hold back the tears.
Dudley wanted to despise Laurence. There was something in the personality of Julia's husband which defied contempt. If Laurence had displayed any crass desire for recognition Dudley would have passed him by with relief; but the artist wished to force all sensitive natures to admit that their secrets could not be hidden.
Laurence's regard for Julia was full of the condescension of maturity. He gave to her where it was impossible for him to take. Dudley had always despised her a little, and now the fact that her husband excluded her from his suffering was testimony of her inadequacy. Without admitting it to himself, Dudley was beginning to resist being associated with her. He reflected that it was grotesque to dream of finding understanding in such a struggling and incomplete nature. Julia was possessive. The heroic woman must rise above this instinct.
Her breasts were a little old, her body thin. He remembered the angularity of her hips, the too long line of her back. He saw her eyes uplifted to his with that pained, withheld look which annoyed him so much. Her skin was very white, but a little coarse. When she put her arms about him her hair, all disarranged, fell wild and heavy about her strained throat. He did not wish to admit that he had discovered his mistress to be less beautiful than, in the beginning, he had imagined her. He revolted against these obvious judgments of the senses. It was unpleasant to recall her so distinctly. He pitied her mental incompleteness which made it impossible to give her the purer values which he wanted to share with her.
Dudley congratulated himself on a curiously sensitive understanding of what Laurence had endured. To escape the unpleasant vision of Julia's body and the dumb gaze which fatigued him so much he concentrated all his reflections on his magnanimous sympathy for the man.