“I want it right away,” said Anastasia calmly, in the tone which took for granted that what she wanted right away would be immediately forthcoming. Edith laughed. “And I’m to get it?” she asked. “You’re to get it,” said Anastasia, “and you needn’t hurry back, for I want to talk to your husband about his boy.” Horace looked at Edith affectionately. “She can share all that,” he said. “You’re very kind,” said Anastasia, with hidden irony, “but anyway I want that shawl.” Edith left them. “Now, Mr. Lestrange,” said Anastasia, suddenly sitting up and fixing him with her eyes, “I’m not going to talk to you about your son much. I’ll say this, and then I’ll leave the subject alone. He’s not like you. I guess he’s like that picture you’ve got on the mantelpiece--the face is selfish, tyrannical, weak and mean. Hush! I see you’re going to tell me she’s dead. I know she’s dead, and Edith’s alive. She’s alive! How long are you going to keep the living woman buried and the dead woman taking all her share of life? How long is Edith to play second fiddle to a memory which isn’t even true? If your first wife had lived you’d have been worn tired of her by now. Do you suppose she’d have said, ‘I’ll give my heart and every quivering nerve to serve this man’s comfort? I’ll starve every sense I have got to give him friendship, since he’s so blind he won’t take more? I’ll not let pain, or time, or just resentment for a wrong he has allowed to take place against me make me bitter, or old, or blunted’? Would your dead wife have acted this way, Horace Lestrange?” Horace looked at his patent leather shoes fixedly. Once he tried to interrupt her, but the tense sharpness of her voice struck his down into silence. Something stirred in his heart that was not all anger and indignation--it was pain--it was recognition! So he breathed hard and said nothing. And for a moment the pitiless voice was still. Anastasia was watching him. “When a man looks down at his shoes, you’re moving him,” she observed to herself. “You can’t tell which way he’s going, but he’s being moved.” Then she went on: “I came here expecting to find you selfish and stupid,” she said; “and you’re neither. You’re a live man, and yet you’ve lived with this woman ten years and not loved her; you’ve looked at her and not seen her; you’ve taken all she had to give, and you’ve never counted what it cost her to give it to you. Oh, you’re slow, you English--you’re slow!” “We’re quick to act,” interrupted the man opposite her gently. He was still looking at his shoes, and he spoke very quietly, but Anastasia suddenly thrilled; she was not accustomed to be thrilled by anything a man said. “I suppose that’s the meaning of English history,” she thought to herself; aloud she merely deepened her note of scorn: