Marjorie’s tired voice roused him.
“It’s very late, dearie,” she said. “Won’t you try to get some rest?”
“Presently. I’ve something to tell you, first. Will you come in and sit down?”
With unaccustomed gentleness, he arranged a chair for her. She dropped into it as though suddenly bereft of the power to stand. Her eyes were feverishly bright, and fixed upon him with apprehension that amounted almost to fear.
Dilling was conscious of intense pity for her. How unequal she was to the demand he—his life—imposed! How gamely she had borne the strain!
He hated her appearance to-night. Evidently, she had returned from the canteen only in time to dress for some more brilliant function. She wore a peach-coloured satin, covered with a sort of iridescent lace—a hideously sophisticated dress, too low and too light; it bedizened her, overlaid all her native simplicity. Dilling was, as a rule, oblivious to the details of women’s clothes, but to-night his perceptions were sharpened, and he examined his wife critically.
As he did so, a horrid thought took possession of his mind. He saw her dress, her manner—her barricade of behavior—as something degrading, detestable, utterly foreign to her. A more imaginative man would have fallen back upon the fancy that the pure gold of her nature was being covered with the whitewash of social pretense. So deeply did it offend him.
“I have been offered the Premiership,” he announced.
“Oh!”
That was all she could say. Months ago she had arrived at the point where she stood on guard over every act and utterance, fearing to proceed lest she should violate some sacred creed and call forth criticism and disdain. And now, when she wanted to speak, she could not. Inarticulate and frightened, she sat, like a person paralysed by nightmare.