She gave him an extraordinarily quick look, like a flash of sheet lightning from a calm evening sky, which left him puzzled. He was not aware, at that time, that no woman will ever admit she has bettered herself by marrying a given man. She must retain for ever that shining figure of him she might have loved, a sort of domestic knight-errant in golden armour, who keeps occasional vigils at her side while the weary actuality slumbers in gross oblivion. Mrs. Dainopoulos knew that Mr. Spokesly saw nothing of this. She knew him for what he was, a being entirely incapable of compassing the secrets of a woman's heart. She knew he imagined that love was all, that women were at the mercy of their love for men, and that chivalrous ideas, rusted and clumsily manipulated, were still to be found in his mind. And she saw the fragility and delicate thinness of his love affair with Ada Rivers. Anything could break it, anything could destroy it, she reflected. Those fancies ... of course he said he was engaged; but an engagement, as Mrs. Dainopoulos knew, having lived in a London suburb, was nothing. Yes, anything might make him forget Ada. And as she repeated the word "anything" to herself in a kind of ecstasy, Mrs. Dainopoulos turned her head quickly and listened. There was a sound of someone being admitted. "So you've met your fate, anyway," she observed to Mr. Spokesly, yet still listening to the distant sound. "Yes," he said with a smile, "I reckon you can cross me off as caught. What's that? Come back, I s'pose. Time for me to be off, anyway. I'm sure...."