Love makes all things possible, and there is no humiliation in
taking from one who loves and is loved, that uncapitalised and communal
partnership which is not of the earth earthy. Perhaps that was why,
though Shiel loved her, he had had a bitterness which galled his soul;
why he had a determination to win sufficient wealth to make himself
independent of her. Down at the bottom of his chivalrous Irish heart he
had learned the truth, that to be dependent on her would beget in her
contempt for him, and he would be only her paid paramour and not her
husband in the true sense. Quixotic he had been, but under his quixotism
there was at least the shadow of a great tragical fact, and it had made
him a matrimonial deserter. Whether tragedy or comedy would emerge was
all on the knees of the gods.
"It's a nice room, isn't it?" asked Kitty when there had passed from Mona
Crozier's eyes the glaze or mist--not of tears, but stupefaction--which
had followed her inspection of the walls, the bureau, the table, and the
desk.
"Most comfortable, and so very clean--quite spotless," the wife answered
admiringly, and yet drearily. It made her feel humiliated that her man
could live this narrow life of one room without despair, with sufficient
resistance to the lure of her hundred and fifty thousand pounds and her
own delicate and charming person.
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