HOW SIMPLE THE SOLUTION!
When Claire awoke the next morning her whole being seemed gathered into a tense strain that made her feel as though the least thing might snap the taut nerves in her body and leave her broken and stranded on some far, emotional shoal. Her heart beat unevenly, while her lips and hands felt dry and hot, as if she had spent hours in a desert wind. She did not experience the bitter anguish of the night before; such storms are too wild to last, but it had left her deadly heavy within, and she was unable to recover her usual calm.
One great determination dominated her, to prevent these men, at any cost, from knowing her real feelings. It was a determination born out of the sheer force that was carrying her on, a struggle that came from the very strength of the tide she sought to resist.
She had been awakened by a sudden and clear image, the result of her unsettled mind. Her husband was beside her, leaning over the bed and looking down at her with a great love and a greater pity shining in his eyes. She thought that she had thrown up her arms to close about him with the frantic joy of a rescued person, only to have them meet in empty air and fall listless at her sides again.
Beyond the curtain she heard Philip saying cheerfully: "It is a great day outside, one of Claire's days for play."
"Good!" Lawrence answered. "We'll go out, then, and play."
A rush of self-pity, anger against her situation, fear of she knew not what, and a gnawing desire to escape blended in her thoughts, while her heart warmed at the sound of Lawrence's words.
"Oh," she thought, "I can never, never stand this day!"
She got out of bed and began to dress, her nervous hands fumbling at the buttons on her clothes. Her eyes, deeper and shadowed in dark rings, stared vacantly at the white canvas before her. Lawrence was talking again, and she listened. Presently he started across the room and bumped into a chair. The incident was one which had become long familiar to her, and ordinarily she would have thought nothing of it, but this morning she flushed with sudden anger that a chair should have been left in his way. Then she realized that she was foolish, stepped through the curtain, and said before she thought:
"Lawrence, I do wish that you'd look where you are going!"