And Kathleen, behind the mask of immobility, was absorbed in a concentrated vengeful loathing of the man who had dared shatter her romance, her last hot chance of romance ... and then himself flaunt a love-affair. Let him go? Divorce him? Make the way easy for him with this splendid wilful young creature who thought him divine? God in heaven, no!... She would keep him from happiness, keep him dragging on beside her, though his proximity were doubly hateful to herself. Never again would she know the thrill of being desired.... Gareth should be made to suffer now for having, in an access of petty malevolence, interfered with her on the night she was to have joined Napier Kirby.
... Slowly she lifted her eyelids, to encounter Patricia's impatient gaze.
"Well?"
"I don't think I'm going to divorce Gareth for your pleasure. As I happen to be in possession, I'll stick to my nine points of the law, thanks."
The girl's lip curled scornfully. "The dog-in-the-manger attitude—I thought better of your intellect. What good will it do you, to live on with a man you don't love? Besides, it's indecent!"
"Not indecent to throw yourself at the head of a married man, I suppose?"
"Yes, very—if I had. Look here, don't let's descend to vituperation. You won't give him up. And you won't give me a reason."
"Are we on a level with our claims, that I should have to give you a reason?"
"Yes; tradition kicked in the wind—we are. And you want your freedom—oh yes, you do!—and won't take it. You even faintly dislike Gareth—but he's yours.... Frankly, Mrs. Temple, you make me feel as though I'd put my hand in a glue-pot."
The ring of stripped exasperation in Patricia's voice sounded on Kathleen's consciousness with an uncanny sense of familiarity ... and not for the first time that afternoon. It was her own voice speaking to Gareth—trying to urge him to some clear decision.... This girl was strangely an echo of her own girlhood; but with all the gathered advantages of a new generation; so that she marched gaily and by right-of-way where Kathleen had been forced to struggle through thorny barriers.