"But surely, when you're always calling on her yourself—"
"I am not always calling on her. And if I were, there are some things which are perfectly proper for me to do which would not be proper for you."
"It sounds as if Mrs. Levitt wasn't."
He looked up as sharply as his facial curves permitted. "Nothing of the sort. She's simply not the sort of person you do call on; and I don't mean you to begin."
"Why not?"
"Because you're my wife and you have a certain position in the county.
That's why."
"Rather a snobby reason, isn't it? You said I might call on anybody I liked."
"So you may, in reason, provided you don't begin with Mrs. Levitt."
"I may have to end with her," said Fanny.
Mr. Waddington had many reasons for not wishing Fanny to call on Mrs. Levitt. He wanted to keep his wife, because she was his wife, in a place apart from Mrs. Levitt and above her, to mark the distance and distinction that there was between them. He wanted to keep himself, as Fanny's husband, apart and distant, by way of enhancing his male attraction. And he wanted to keep Mrs. Levitt apart, to keep her to himself, as the hidden woman of passionate adventure. Hitherto their intercourse had had the charm, the unique, irreplaceable charm of things unacknowledged and clandestine. Mrs. Levitt was unique; irreplaceable. He couldn't think of any other woman who would be a suitable substitute. There was little Barbara Madden; she had been afraid of him; but his passions were still too young to be stirred by the crudity of a girl's fright; if it came to that, he preferred the reassuring ease of Mrs. Levitt.