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Rh "And you—what would you do?"

"Oh, I'd knock about somehow and work. I've had enough of women. There isn't one that I've any respect for now."

Basil's anger sank into a cool and biting mood, which lasted on from day to day. He talked less and less to Teresa, and finally became almost altogether silent. He shut himself up in the studio for the greater part of the day, and now he was really working. He was forcing himself to work, and Teresa saw the marks of this fierce effort of will in his face. And she saw in it a new hardness, forming like a mask—a jaded, an older look …

Basil was cutting himself off from her. They were very little together now. She felt that some change was impending. Something was going on in his mind, of which he would not speak. Whatever it was, it would have some practical effect. She felt that he was deciding something, and without her. Was he slipping away from her …? Was she to lose him, really, and for a thing so slight in itself as her relation with Crayven, whatever that relation might have indicated to Basil? She could not believe it possible. But she was proudly silent, too, while her very heart seemed turning to ice within her.