In the morning she
made atonement to her husband.
'I was wrong in annoying you yesterday,' she said as she walked with
him from the house to the garden gate. 'In such things you are far
better able to judge. You won't let it trouble you?'
It was a form of asceticism; Adela had a joy in humbling herself and
crushing her rebel instincts. She even raised her eyes to
interrogate him. On Richard's face was an uneasy smile, a look of
puzzled reflection. It gratified him intensely to hear such words,
yet he could not hear them without the suspicions of a vulgar nature
brought in contact with nobleness.
'Well, yes,' he replied, 'I think you were a bit too hasty: you're
not practical, you see. It wants a practical man to manage those
kind of things.'
The reply was not such as completes the blessedness of pure
submission. Adela averted her eyes. Another woman would perchance
have sought to assure herself that she was right in crediting him
with private benevolence to the family he was compelled to visit so
severely. Such a question Adela could not ask. It would have been to
betray doubt; she imagined a replying glance which would shame her.
To love, to honour, to obey:--many times daily she repeated to
herself that threefold vow, and hitherto the first article had most
occupied her striving heart.
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