If only they were not so silent; Clare had never faltered or complained. Only she had wanted to go out; she had looked out of the window with a kind of homesickness. He was always catching her eyes at their straying, and being made aware how far removed she was from himself. But this, again, had been with half of his brain; with the other half he had known that she was his wife and that he had got her under his roof. And he had not allowed his lyrical self to call her a prisoner. What if she were to escape? He would be without persuasion or authority. “You stay with me out of apathy,” he cried. “If once your fancy changed, you would be gone.” Clare, who had not been thinking of him, turned a mild glance of slight attention on him. He was glaring at her, frightened and angry. “Yes,” he continued, “I don’t hold you; you’re kind to me, and you indulge my game of pretence. But you’re not really here. You’re indulgent to me as if I were a child,--‘yes, dear, very nice,’ between your own, grown-up preoccupations. But you ought to remember that I am your husband,” he said. “When have I forgotten it?” He sulked. It was true she had not forgotten it. He had no reproaches against her; she had been patient, gentle. “I don’t hold you,” he grumbled. It was a long time since she had seen him like this; usually he was assertive and complacent. How slight a thing it took to disturb him! His complacency was only a façade, a painted hoarding propped up by struts,--theatrical, like everything else about him. But she really bothered very little with him, now that she had found him out. “Oh, yes, Richard,” she said, to pacify him and to be done with the argument. “But I say no,” he cried, hitting his fist on the arm of his chair. “You’re for ever looking out of the window, and sometimes when I speak to you, you answer beside the point. I married you to get a wife, not a woman languishing like a captive in my house.” She laughed at that, quite amusedly, and he felt he had been foolish. Still he would not abandon his point. “That fellow would only have to beckon ...” he grumbled. “Lovel again?” asked Clare. “You enjoy saying his name.” “I do not,” said Clare quietly. “No,” he said, staring at her, “perhaps you do not.” Perhaps she did not. Perhaps the very name was pain to her. But he must go wrangling on at her. “Lovel wouldn’t keep you indoors, perhaps you think.--He would let you out into the snow,--take you out into it himself perhaps.” She only looked at him. He went on, more judicial now; deliberate, less blatantly bad-tempered.