"Nothing for myself. I only want you to be a little less unhappy."
She felt him stiffen and his voice was very cold when he answered.
"You're mistaken in thinking I'm unhappy. I have a great deal too much to do to think of you very often."
"I have wondered if the nuns would allow me to go and work at the convent. They are very short handed and if I could be of any help I should be grateful to them."
"It is not easy work or pleasant work. I doubt if it would amuse you long."
"Do you absolutely despise me, Walter?"
"No." He hesitated and his voice was strange. "I despise myself."
[xlvii]
It was after dinner. As usual Walter sat by the lamp and read. He read every evening till Kitty went to bed and then went into a laboratory which he had fitted up in one of the bungalow's empty rooms. Here he worked late into the night. He slept little. He was occupied with she knew not what experiments. He told her nothing of his work; but even in the old days he had been reticent on this: he was not by nature expansive. She thought deeply of what he had just said to her: the conversation had led to nothing. She knew him so little that she could not be sure if he was speaking the truth or not. Was it possible that, whereas he now existed so ominously for her, she had entirely ceased to exist for him? Her conversation which had entertained him once because he loved her, now that he loved her no longer might be merely tedious to him. It mortified her.
She looked at him. The light of the lamp displayed his profile as though it were a cameo. With his regular and finely-cut features it was very distinguished, but it was more than severe, it was grim: that immobility of his, only his eyes moving as he perused each page, was vaguely terrifying. Who would have thought that this hard face could be melted by passion to such a tenderness of expression? She knew and it excited in her a little shiver of distaste. It was strange that though he was good-looking as well as honest, reliable and talented, it had been so impossible for her to love him. It was a relief that she need never again submit to his caresses.