which gave view over Hyde Park, and drummed a finger on its pane. His
feelings were confused, tetchy, troubled. The throb of that old wound,
scarred over by Time and new interests, was mingled with displeasure
and anxiety, and a slight pain in his chest where that nougat stuff had
disagreed. Had Annette come in? Not that she was any good to him in such
a difficulty. Whenever she had questioned him about his first marriage,
he had always shut her up; she knew nothing of it, save that it had
been the great passion of his life, and his marriage with herself
but domestic makeshift. She had always kept the grudge of that up her
sleeve, as it were, and used it commercially. He listened. A sound--the
vague murmur of a woman's movements--was coming through the door. She
was in. He tapped.

"Who?"

"I," said Soames.

She had been changing her frock, and was still imperfectly clothed; a
striking figure before her glass. There was a certain magnificence about
her arms, shoulders, hair, which had darkened since he first knew
her, about the turn of her neck, the silkiness of her garments, her
dark-lashed, greyblue eyes--she was certainly as handsome at forty
as she had ever been. A fine possession, an excellent housekeeper, a
sensible and affectionate enough mother. If only she weren't always so
frankly cynical about the relations between them! Soames, who had no
more real affection for her than she had for him, suffered from a kind
of English grievance in that she had never dropped even the thinnest
veil of sentiment over their partnership. Like most of his countrymen
and women, he held the view that marriage should be based on mutual
love, but that when from a marriage love had disappeared, or, been found