For to Rose, as she sat there, the thought had come that for all she saw of her husband she might as well not be married to him. She had been better off at Hampstead when she waited on him hand and foot; when she was doing things for him half the day; when, more often than not, he had a minute to spare for a word or a look that set her heart fairly dancing. She had agreed to their marriage chiefly because it would enable her to wait on him and nobody but him, to wait on him all day long. And he had said to her, first thing, as they dined together on their wedding-day, that he wasn't going to let his wife wait on him. That was why they lived in rooms (since he couldn't afford a house and servant), that she might be waited on. He had hated to see her working, he said; and now she wouldn't have to work. No, never again. And when she asked him if he liked to see her sitting with her hands before her, doing nothing, he said that was precisely what he did like. And it had been all very well so long as he had been there to see her. But now he wasn't ever there. It was worse than it was down in Sussex. All morning he shut himself up in his study to write. After lunch he went up there again to smoke. Then he would go out by himself, and he might or might not come in for dinner. All evening he shut himself up again and wrote. At midnight or after he would come to her, worn out, and sleep, lying like a dead man at her side. She was startled by the sound of the postman's knock and the flapping fall of a letter in the letter-box. It was for Tanqueray, and she took it up to him and laid it beside him without a word. To speak would have been fatal. He had let his fire go out (she knew he would); so, while he was reading his letter, she knelt down by the hearth and made it up again. She went to work very softly, but he heard her. "What are you doing there?" he said. "I thought," said she, "I was as quiet as a mouse." "So you were. Just about. A horrid little mouse that keeps scratching at the wainscot and creeping about the room and startling me." "Do I startle you?" "You do. Horribly." Rose put down the poker without a sound. He had finished his letter and had not begun writing again. He was only looking at his letter. So Rose remarked that lunch was ready. He put the letter into a drawer, and they went down. About half-way through lunch he spoke. "Look here," he said, "you _must_ keep out of the room when I'm writing." "You're always writing now." Yes. He was always writing now; because he did not want to talk to Rose and it was the best way of keeping her out of the room. But as yet he did not know that was why, any more than he knew that he had come to live in London because he wanted to talk to Jinny. The letter in his drawer up-stairs was from Jinny, asking him if she might not come and see his wife. He was not sure that he wanted her to come and see his wife. Why should she?