“That you need not have said.”
“One does not always say what one ought.”
“I have made the child a present of some clothes which she badly needed. So far as I know, that's all I've done!”
“Of course!”
This wonderful “of course” acted on Hilary like a tonic. He said dryly:
“What do you wish me to do?”
“I?” No gust of the east wind, making the young leaves curl and shiver, the gas jets flare and die down in their lamps, could so have nipped the flower of amity. Through Hilary's mind flashed Stephen's almost imploring words: “Oh, I wouldn't go to her! Women are so funny!”
He looked round. A blue gauze scarf was wrapped over his wife's dark head. There, in her corner, as far away from him as she could get, she was smiling. For a moment Hilary had the sensation of being stiffed by fold on fold of that blue gauze scarf, as if he were doomed to drive for ever, suffocated, by the side of this woman who had killed his love for her.
“You will do what you like, of course,” she said suddenly.
A desire to laugh seized Hilary. “What do you wish me to do?” “You will do what you like, of course!” Could civilised restraint and tolerance go further?