upon, her--he was only slightly disappointed. He treated her with real
kindness save on the occasions of his violent loss of temper, and gave her
anything that she wanted. He had, on the whole, a great contempt for women
save when, as for instance with Mrs. Combermere, they were really men.

It was to her most humiliating of all, that nothing in their relations
worried him. He was perfectly at ease about it all, and fancied that she
was the same. Meanwhile her real life was not dead, only dormant. For some
years she tried to change the situation; she made little appeals to him,
endeavoured timidly to force him to need her, even on one occasion
threatened to sleep in a separate room. The memory of _that_ little
episode still terrified her. His incredulity had only been equalled by his
anger. It was just as though some one had threatened to deprive him of his
morning tub....

Then, when she saw that this was of no avail, she had concentrated herself
upon her children, and especially upon Falk. For a while she had fancied
that she was satisfied. Suddenly--and the discovery was awful--she was
aware that Falk's affection all turned towards his father rather than
towards her. Her son despised her and disregarded her as his father had
done. She did not love Falk the less, but she ceased to expect anything
from him--and this new loss she put down to her husband's account.

It was shortly after she made this discovery that the affair of the
primroses occurred.

Many a woman now would have shown her hostility, but Mrs. Brandon was, by
nature, a woman who showed nothing. She did not even show anything to
herself, but all the deeper, because it found no expression, did her
hatred penetrate. She scored now little marks against him for everything