In a way he was glad that he had made the error of speaking about William Grove's absence in Washington: it was a step toward a final resolution, a tranquilization, of the pressure at home. He didn't know what would bring it up, possibly a storm surpassing in violence all that had preceded it; and then ... the open prospect of old age. Fanny should not actually learn of the occurrence in New York, there must be no mistake about that; she would act on the supposition that he had been merely indulging in a more or less advanced dallying; but her patience in that, he judged, was at an end. Well, he could ultimately, in all sincerity, agree with her there. Not too soon, of course, for she was at present deeply suspicious of such protestations; he would maintain for a short while longer an appearance of annoyance, his old successful indignations at her minor charges, and then let her see that she had nothing left to combat from that quarter. But how, in the other implications of such a scene, would he act? Until now his part in the inevitable frictions of matrimony had been conditioned by a tenderness toward Fanny and a measurable supporting belief that he was generally to blame. She had reduced him to the compounding of excuses; after her attack, drawing away, she had managed to make him follow her. Not cheaply, with the vulgarity of a gift, a price outheld, but with the repeated assertions of his endless love. Nothing less satisfied her. In this she was superior. But, even if he surrendered his life to the effort, could he keep up that pretence of a passion unimpaired? And had he, Lee asked himself over and over, the wish, the patience, for that heavy undertaking? It was still fairly evident that he hadn't. All that he could hope for, which they both could summon, was luck and the deadening hands of time. He told himself, here, that it was more than probable that he was exaggerating the proportions of the whole situation--Fanny had been angry before; her resentment faded the sooner for its swift explosive character. But this assurance was unconvincing; his presentiment, which didn't rest on reason, was not amenable to a reasonable conclusion. Of this he was certain, that Fanny never had harbored the suspicion of what, for her, would be the very worst. Did she know? If she did, he decided, it was only in the form of an unanalyzed, unidentified, feeling. She wasn't a coward. His determination to keep smooth, by mere politeness, the further course of their marriage seemed frivolous. That might do, it was even indispensable, when the present corner was turned; but for the moment--