Fanny had accepted his version of the thing and lived by it. There were some rewards. She managed to derive a dubious satisfaction during their infrequent hours of passion from the knowledge that he was a famous man. She also found a source of secret excitement in his austerity and virtue. The fact that he was so high-minded and aloof from any thought of sex offered a piquant contrast to occasions when he condescended to be her lover. Such occasions were for Fanny far from austere and high-minded. She allowed the keen sensuality of her nature free reign. Aubrey's noble attitude served to inspire her with a sense of guilt, as if their relations were really as indecent and immoral as he contended sex to be. And the idea of their being indecent and immoral heightened her enjoyment of them. She wondered at many things about Aubrey. Despite his aversion to sex, (she did not think of it as an aversion but as a high-mindedness,) he was yet very attentive to women. Not in the way that most men were attentive. But chivalrously. He had become during their married life a veritable Chesterfield and Sir Raleigh. It was not only his manner--his observation of little rules of conduct such as rising when a woman entered or helping her on with her wraps, or assisting her to pull up her chair at the table or opening doors or any of the thousand niceties--that marked his attitude toward women. It was also his ideas. He frequently discussed women and his point of view was more chivalrous than most men's. He said that he believed in the fineness of women. That a woman was a pure, beautiful soul. And he was quick to resent insults to women, even general insults which sought to reflect upon woman's purity as a whole or to make her out a scheming sexual animal. Fanny was proud of his chivalrous tone. It distinguished him and she did not resent the fact that it interested women. She had never been jealous of Aubrey. And she had gradually accustomed herself to his high-mindedness. She would have liked abandoned caresses and embraces. But these had never been forthcoming, even on their honeymoon long ago. And she had given up dreaming of them--for herself. She dreamed about them now in connection with others and her mind, colored by unsatisfied desires, indulged itself in the luxurious and lascivious details of her suspicions of others. She sat watching Henrietta as Mr. Mackay talked to her and despite an effort to control her thought, she began to wonder what they had been doing alone in the apartment before she and Aubrey came. He had probably taken her hand and pulled her to him, put his arms around her and Henrietta, overcome with a sudden passion, had probably flung her arms about his shoulders and given him her lips wildly. And just as they were standing deliriously embraced like that, the bell had probably rung and Henrietta had jumped away and grabbed her sewing. She had come to the door with her sewing in her hand and....