In reflecting upon the excellences of Rachel he had often
said to himself that her unique charm consisted in the fact that she
combined the attractiveness of woman with the powerful commonsense of
man. In common with a whole enthusiastic army of young husbands he had
been convinced that his wife was the one female creature on earth to
whom you could talk as you would to a male. "Oh!" he murmured.
"Have you forgotten it, then?" she asked coldly. To herself she was
saying: "Why am I behaving like this? After all, he's done no harm
yet." But she had set out, and she must continue, driven by the
terrible fear of what he might do. She stared at the blind. Through a
slit of window at one side of it she could see the lamp-post and the
iron kerb of the pavement.
"But that's all over long ago," he protested amiably. "Just look how
friendly you were with him yourself over supper! Besides--"
"Besides what? I wasn't friendly. I was only polite. I had to be.
Nobody's called Mr. Batchgrew worse names than you have. But you
forget. Only I don't forget. There's lots of things I don't forget,
although I don't make a song about them. I shan't forget in a hurry
how you let go of my bike without telling me and I fell all over the
road.
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