Julia's long arms reached up to her hat. Paul's gaze made her feel her body beautiful and strong, but her heart felt utterly lost in wickedness. I'm Dudley Allen's mistress, she said to herself. She had expected the reassurance of pain in her sense of sin; but the meaning of what she had done was so utterly vacant that it frightened her. "Why not have dinner with us? I want to hear more of your discussion."
Paul resented everything about her, her strongness and poise and the impression she gave him of having passed from something in which he was still held. He moved his shoulders grotesquely. "Oh, Shaw's too facile. He's only a bag of tricks." He could not bear to be with May any longer. She's a silly little girl. "Good-night." He went out quickly. She's laughing at me! She's trying to make me rude. They heard the front door slam.
Paul's accusing air had given Julia a feeling of self-condemnation. She could not look at May at once.
"I am stupid with Paul," May said. "I don't see why he likes to talk to me. He's so grown-up and intellectual and I never know what to say to him." She smiled unhappily. Her thin little hands moved awkwardly in her lap. She wanted Aunt Julia to like her.
Julia found in May's eagerness an inference of reproach, and was kind with an effort. "Nonsense, May. Paul finds you a very interesting little companion. He enjoys talking to you very much."
May's mouth quivered. Her eyes were soft and appeared dark in her small pale face. "But he's eighteen," she said.
There were slow footsteps, ponderous on the stairs. Julia knew that Laurence had come. Her heart beats quickened almost happily. She wanted to experience the reproach of his face. Without naming what she waited for, as a saint looks forward to his crucifixion, she looked forward to the moment when he should condemn her.
Laurence stood in the doorway. "Well, Julie, girl, how are you to-night?" His brows contracted momentarily when he noticed May. "How are you, May?" But his gaze returned to Julia and he smiled at her steadily. His lips were harsh and at the same time sweet.
"You're tired, dear. Come sit by our fire." Julia could not meet his eyes. She watched his heavy slouched shoulders and observed the loose bulge of his coat as he sank deeply in the high-backed chair which she offered him. His hands were wonderful. Small white hesitating hands. She remembered Dudley's hands passing over her, repulsive to her, hungry hands with a kind of lascivious innocence that hurt.
Dudley's bright secretive eyes seemed close to her, between her and her husband, giving out a harsh warmth that suffocated her. She identified herself so with her imaginings that it was as if she had become invisible to Laurence.