She turned on her side, beating the cushions into new shapes. "Oh, well, that's all over long ago—long, long ago." She forgot the men again, staring in front of her.
Henry waited a little, then said a word to Peter and went.
[CHAPTER III]
A DEATH AND A BATTLE
Yes, life was now crowding in upon Henry indeed, crowding him in, stamping on him, treading him down. No sooner had he received one impact than another was upon him—— Such women as Clare, in regular daily life, in the closest connection with his own most intimate friend! As he hurried away down Marylebone High Street his great thought was that he wanted to do something for her, to take that angry tragedy out of her eyes, to make her happy. Peter wouldn't make her happy. They would never be happy together. He and Peter would never be able to deal with a case like Clare's, there was something too naïve, too childish in them. How she despised both of them, as though they had been curates on their visiting-day in the slums.
Oh, Henry understood that well enough. But didn't all women despise all men unless they were in love with them or wanted to be in love with them or had helped to produce them?
And then again, when you thought of it, didn't all men despise all women with the same exceptions? Clare's scorn of him tingled in his ears and made his eyes smart. And what she must have been through to look like that!
He dreamt of her that night; he was in thick jungle and she, tiger-shaped, was hunting him and some one shouted to him: "Look to yourself! Climb into yourself! The only place you're safe in!"