Her child seemed to link her up again in a circuit with her own family.
Her father and mother, herself, and her child, that was the human trinity
for her. Her husband--? Yes, she loved him still. But that was like play.
She had an almost barbaric sense of duty and of family. Till she married,
her first human duty had been towards her father: he was the pillar, the
source of life, the everlasting support. Now another link was added to
the chain of duty: her father, herself, and her child.

Egbert was out of it. Without anything happening, he was gradually,
unconsciously excluded from the circle. His wife still loved him,
physically. But, but--he was _almost_ the unnecessary party in the
affair. He could not complain of Winifred. She still did her duty towards
him. She still had a physical passion for him, that physical passion on
which he had put all his life and soul. But--but--

It was for a long while an ever-recurring _but_. And then, after the
second child, another blonde, winsome touching little thing, not so proud
and flame-like as Joyce--after Annabel came, then Egbert began truly to
realize how it was. His wife still loved him. But--and now the but had
grown enormous--her physical love for him was of secondary importance to
her. It became ever less important. After all, she had had it, this
physical passion, for two years now. It was not this that one lived from.
No, no--something sterner, realer.

She began to resent her own passion for Egbert--just a little she began
to despise it. For after all there he was, he was charming, he was
lovable, he was terribly desirable. But--but--oh, the awful looming cloud
of that _but!_--he did not stand firm in the landscape of her life like a
tower of strength, like a great pillar of significance. No, he was like a
cat one has about the house, which will one day disappear and leave no