If any one had asked him
if he wanted to own her soul, the question would have seemed to him both
ridiculous and sentimental. But he did so want, and the writing said he
never would.
She was ever silent, passive, gracefully averse; as though terrified
lest by word, motion, or sign she might lead him to believe that she was
fond of him; and he asked himself: Must I always go on like this?
Like most novel readers of his generation (and Soames was a great novel
reader), literature coloured his view of life; and he had imbibed the
belief that it was only a question of time.
In the end the husband always gained the affection of his wife. Even
in those cases--a class of book he was not very fond of--which ended in
tragedy, the wife always died with poignant regrets on her lips, or if
it were the husband who died--unpleasant thought--threw herself on his
body in an agony of remorse.
He often took Irene to the theatre, instinctively choosing the modern
Society Plays with the modern Society conjugal problem, so fortunately
different from any conjugal problem in real life. He found that they too
always ended in the same way, even when there was a lover in the case.
While he was watching the play Soames often sympathized with the lover;
but before he reached home again, driving with Irene in a hansom, he saw
that this would not do, and he was glad the play had ended as it had.
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