At the thought of the splendid times that she might have been having with some one else, with some splendid strong man who could take her in his arms until she could scarcely breathe, some one who would understand her when she wanted to talk and not go fast off to sleep, some one, well, like Mr. Maradick, for instance, her eyes glittered.
She looked at the room, moved across the floor and switched off the lights. She crept into bed, moving as far away from her husband as possible. He didn’t care—nobody cared—she belonged to nobody in the world. She began to sob, and then she thought, of the picnic; well, he had cared and understood. He would not have gone to sleep . . . soon she was dreaming.
And the other person upon whom the weather had had some effect was Mrs. Maradick. It could not be said that weather, as a rule, affected her at all, and perhaps even now things might be put down to the picnic; but the fact remains that for the first time in her selfish little life she was unhappy. She had been wounded in her most sensitive spot, her vanity. It did not need any very acute intelligence to see that she was not popular with the people in the hotel. The picnic had shown it to her quite conclusively, and she had returned in a furious passion. They had been quite nice to her, of course, but it did not need a very subtle woman to discover their real feelings. Fifteen years of Epsom’s admiration had ill-prepared her for a harsh and unsympathetic world, and she had never felt so lonely in her life before. She hated Lady Gale and Mrs. Lester bitterly from the bottom of her heart, but she would have given a very great deal, all her Epsom worshippers and more, for some genuine advance on their part.
She was waiting now in her room for her husband to come in. She was sitting up in bed looking very diminutive indeed, with her little sharp nose and her bright shining eyes piercing the shadows; she had turned out the lights, except the one by the bed. She did not know in the least what she was going to say to him, but she was angry and sore and lonely; she was savage with the world in general and with James in particular. She bit her lips and waited. He came in softly, as though he expected to find her asleep, and then when he saw her light he started. His bed was by the window and he moved towards it. Then he stopped and saw her sitting up in bed.
“Emmy! You still awake!”
He looked enormous in his pyjamas; he could see his muscles move beneath the jacket.
“Yes,” she said, “I want to talk to you.”
“Oh! must we? Now?” he said. “It seems very late.”
“It’s the only opportunity that one gets nowadays,” she said, her eyes flaring, “you are so much engaged.” It made her furious to see him looking so clean and comfortably sleepy.
“Engaged?” he said.