There are certain moments in the life of every woman, when the sex-antagonism disappears and she realizes the sex-necessity. Such a moment came to Patricia as she tramped sturdily along the leaf-sodden road that late-December afternoon of nineteen hundred and sixteen.
Hitherto, she had been content to regard the sex-intimacies as rather shameful necessities of married life. The man desired; the woman gave way to his desires. Her own desires, the secret pleasure she sometimes experienced in giving way to him, were of those savage hordes, the instincts, which Reason—very reasonably—did its utmost to suppress: Bedroom thoughts, in fact.
Bedroom thoughts! Suddenly she saw the absurdity of the phrase. If love meant anything at all, it meant mutuality; and mutuality could not exclude sex-instinct. Why should woman be ashamed of her desires? Bedroom thoughts—indeed. Absurd mock-modesty! Rubbish! Stuff and Nonsense! Early Victorianism at its soppiest extreme! . . .
And the woman of thirty tramped on. It was her moment of matehood: in that moment, she forgot her two children, her reduced income, her husband’s illness; realized nothing except this new and to her amazing truth—that the sex-need was mutual.
There came over her a great mood of clairvoyance. The word “mistress” no longer puzzled, no longer frightened. By her love, she interpreted the meaning of it: by her love, she saw the sex-thing whole. It sufficed not that a wife surrendered her body grudgingly, even though she became her husband’s pal, his childbearer, the manager of his home and the partner of his income. Marriage, to be perfect, required more than these. They twain must be one flesh, one in mutual desire as they were one in mutual interest. And in clean desire, love sanctifying, could be no shame.
Matehood-moment still on her, Patricia rounded the last bend of the road; sighted the mellow straggling roof of Francis Gordon’s cottage above the leafless elder-hedges.
Francis! In the light of her new vision, the man no longer seemed despicable. Broken, foolishly ashamed of physical infirmity, irresolute, unwilling or unable to work—one thing, at least, he kept sacred. “Living like a monk!” Her father’s words held the semblance of a sneer; but she, Patricia, understood.
And for the first time, understanding him, she respected this man. Intuition gave her the sure clue to his mind: like herself, Francis Gordon had climbed the pinnacles, seen the sex-thing whole. As to her, so to Francis Gordon, Love had vouchsafed the inner meanings; and now, he could accept no substitute for Love. Either the one woman,—pal and childbearer, partner and mistress; or this, the lonely cottage among the lonely woods. . . .
But intuition gave Patricia no clue to the heart of the problem, to the man’s renunciation. Blind to everything except her own immediate feelings, she saw only this straggling cottage which might have been a home—this house without its woman. A girl in America! In her ignorance, Patricia hated “that girl.” That girl must know Francis loved her. She corresponded with him; sent him post-cards when he didn’t write regularly. Then why didn’t she marry him? Obviously, because “that girl” was a flirt, a light woman, unworthy of love. . . .
By the time she reached the low flint-wall which divided Glen Cottage from the main-road, Patricia had worked herself up into a fine state of resolution. She would talk to Francis; warn him against “that girl” who was ruining his life, warn him against himself. . . .