"Why shall I?" He wouldn't tell her.
That made her daring. "Why shall I?"
His first answer was a steady look; his second, "Nothing stops, you know. Things all swim to a point. Ebb and flow. They don't go back until they reach it."
"And then?"
"And then they may—or they may not blot it out and swim on."
CHAPTER XIV
THE GREAT SCHEME
The height of her esteem for Urquhart was the measure of her growing disrelish for James. It was hard to visit upon a man the sense that he was not what he had never dreamed of being; but that is what happened to him. By how much he had risen in her eyes when she made an Eros of him, by so much did he fall when she found out her mistake. Because he was obviously no Eros, was he so obviously but part of a man? It seemed so indeed. If he discerned it there's no wonder. He irritated her; she found herself instinctively combating his little preparations for completeness of effect—she was herself all for simplicity in these days. She could not conceal her scorn, for instance, when he refused to go with her to dine in a distant suburb because he would not have time to dress. "As if," she said, "you eat your shirt-front!" Trenchancy from James produced a silent disapproval. As he said, if she didn't sniff, she looked as if she felt a cold coming on. She knew it herself and took great pains; but it coloured her tone, if not her words. Too often she was merely silent when he was very much himself. Silence is contagious: they passed a whole dinner through without a word, sometimes.