Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/451

Rh moderate censure, but they went away cursing to themselves. As Lettie was always a very good wife, Leslie adored her when he had the time, and when he had not, forgot her comfortably.

She was very contradictory. At times she would write to me in terms of passionate dissatisfaction: she had nothing at all in her life, it was a barren futility.

“I hope I shall have another child next spring,” she would write, “there is only that to take away the misery of this torpor. I seem full of passion and energy, and it all fizzles out in day to day domestics——”

When I replied to her urging her to take some work that she could throw her soul into, she would reply indifferently. Then later:

“You charge me with contradiction. Well, naturally. You see I wrote that screeching letter in a mood which won’t come again for some time. Generally I am quite content to take the rain and the calm days just as they come, then something flings me out of myself—and I am a trifle demented:—very, very blue, as I tell Leslie.”

Like so many women, she seemed to live, for the most part contentedly, a small indoor existence with artificial light and padded upholstery. Only occasionally, hearing the winds of life outside, she clamoured to be out in the black, keen storm. She was driven to the door, she looked out and called into the tumult wildly, but feminine caution kept her from stepping over the threshold.

George was flourishing in his horse-dealing.

In the morning, processions of splendid shire