And a customer, pushing open the door unnoticed two minutes later,
retired hurriedly to get shaved elsewhere, doubting whether Arthur's
mind was on his job.

For a time this little thunderstorm undoubtedly cleared the air. For a
day or two Maud was happier than she ever remembered to have been.
Arthur's behaviour was unexceptionable. He bought her a wrist-watch--
light brown leather, very smart. He gave her some chocolates to eat in
the Tube. He entertained her with amazing statistics, culled from the
weekly paper which he bought on Tuesdays. He was, in short, the perfect
lover. On the second day the red-faced man came in again. Arthur joined
in the laughter at his stories. Everything seemed ideal.

It could not last. Gradually things slipped back into the old routine.
Maud, looking up from her work, would see the frown and the bitten lip.
She began again to feel uncomfortable and self-conscious as she worked.
Sometimes their conversation on the way to the Tube was almost formal.

It was useless to say anything. She had a wholesome horror of being one
of those women who nagged; and she felt that to complain again would
amount to nagging. She tried to put the thing out of her mind, but it
insisted on staying there. In a way she understood his feelings. He
loved her so much, she supposed, that he hated the idea of her
exchanging a single word with another man. This, in the abstract, was
gratifying; but in practice it distressed her. She wished she were some
sort of foreigner, so that nobody could talk to her. But then they
would look at her, and that probably would produce much the same
results. It was a hard world for a girl.