'Perhaps I should have taken you to see something more cheerful; but I wanted to see Miss Massey play Lady Macbeth. But let us talk of something else. Splendid fire—is it not?'
Hubert threw off his overcoat, the movement attracted Julia's attention, and it startled her to see how old he seemed to have grown. She noticed as she had not noticed before the grey in his beard and the pathetic weary look that haunted his eyes. And she understood in that instant that the look his face wore was the look of those who have failed in their vocation.
And at that very moment he was wondering if he really loved her, if his marriage were a mistake. The passion he had felt when walking with her on the wet country road he felt no longer, only an undefinable sadness and a weariness which he could not understand. He looked at his wife, and fearing that she divined his thoughts, he kissed her. She returned his kiss coldly and he wondered if she loved him. He thought that it was improbable that she did. Why should she love him? He had never loved any one. He had never inspired love in any one, except perhaps Emily.
'I wonder if you really wished to be married,' she said.
'I always wished to be married,' he replied. 'I hated the Bohemianism I was forced to live in. I longed for a home, for a wife.'
'You were very poor once?'
'Yes: I've lived on tenpence and a shilling a day. I've worked in the docks as a labourer. I went down there hoping to get a clerkship on board one of the Transatlantic steamers. I had had enough of England, and thought of seeking fortune elsewhere.'
'I can hardly believe you worked as a labourer in the docks.'
'Yes; I did. I saw some men going to work, and I joined them. I don't think I thought much about it at the time. A very little misery rubs all the psychology out of us, and we return more easily than one thinks to the animal.'
'And then?'