obstinacy. She proceeded warily, and made no open attack; but Jonah began
to notice with uneasiness that he could not talk for five minutes without
stumbling on marriage. In the midst of a conversation on the weather,
he would be amazed to find the theme turn to the praise of marriage,
brought mysteriously to this hateful word as a man is led blindfold to a
giddy cliff. When his startled look warned the mother, she changed
the subject.

Still she persevered, sapping Jonah's prejudices with the terrible zeal
of a priest making a convert. When he saw her drift, it set him thinking,
and he watched Ada with curious attention as she moved about the house
helping her mother.

It was Sunday morning, and Ada was shelling peas. The pods split with
a sharp crack under her fingers, and the peas rattled into a tin basin.
She wore an old skirt, torn and shabby; her bodice was split under the
arms, showing the white lining. Her hair lay flat on her forehead,
screwed tightly in curling-pins, which brought into relief her fiat face
and high cheekbones, for she was no beauty. By a singular coquetry,
she wore her best shoes, small and neat, with high French heels.

Jonah looked at the girl with satisfaction, but she stirred no sentiment,
for all women were alike to him. His view of them was purely animal.
The procession of Chook's loves crossed his mind, and he smiled. At
regular intervals Chook "went balmy" over some girl or other, and, while
the fit lasted, worshipped her as a savage worships an idol. And Jonah
was stupefied by this passionate preference for one woman. He had never
felt that way for Ada.

He returned to his own affairs. Marriage meant a wife, a family, and