Another day, it seemed as if things did not go well with the black embroidery, for he was savage and silent. Then it was she guessed that something was struggling with him for its existence, and that he stabbed at it, and tried to strangle it. Yet such days, lashed by blasts of his bitter tongue, were more welcome to her than those on which he was smiling and content and in harmony with himself. As these weeks of May went by, Violet saw more and more clearly that she had no significance for him at all, and it was just that which gave the days their unspeakable tension. Sometimes she was the butt of his irony, sometimes he completely disregarded her, but, whichever it was, he was not concerned with her. She was just the traditional Stanier wife, whose duty it was to provide an heir; after that she might freeze. He knew she loved him, he knew she feared him, and he was quite indifferent to both. It was Dennis round whom all his thoughts and all this strange hidden contest centred, and unerringly she knew who were the combatants now beginning to come into touch with each other. On the one side was all that the legend stood for, the love of hate, and the hate of love. Colin, all his life, had been an apt pupil in that deadly school: perhaps no such scholar as he had ever graduated there. Already he had tried to use love as an instrument of corruption, and he had failed and changed his plan. Now, he was out to kill love, and in command of the black panoply he was arraying himself to fight against a young boy who stood there unaware that there was anyone but the father he adored coming to meet him. He had no defence except love ... and yet was there a traitor in the very heart of his foes? And she had to stand aside and watch. Of what use was it to warn Dennis? What form could that warning take? All he knew was that it was his father coming to him. If she could somehow throw herself between them, Colin would pass on over her, indifferent, scarcely even aware of her. One thing only perhaps she could do, and that was to stamp out her fear of him, for the only effect of fear was to paralyse.... Thus then, dimly and mistily, was the new situation forming. But it would not present itself like that: it would take shape, when Dennis was home again, in daily domestic ways, in ways cunning and cruel, in ways perhaps affectionate and winning. But they would all contribute to the end in view. CHAPTER V