Yes, the odd and distressing thing was that, in consequence of her wearing them, she had never really seen Rivers’ face, and, worse than that even, he had never seen hers. He betrayed no curiosity, no desire at all to see it, and his indifference affronted her vanity not a little. There must be something left out of a man, she argued, who could take pleasure in the society of such an example of unsexed, negative womanhood as she presented. For she was sure that he did take pleasure in her society, now, in an odd, misogynistical way--that he was glad when he saw her come stumbling and tottering across the bridge of slippery stones to him of a morning, sometimes even staying herself by one hand on the moist slabs of moss-grown rock that lay in her passage, the other holding high and dry her budget of letters and news. His voice, as he bade her good morning, sometimes even without looking up--he was so occupied--testified to a certain pleasurable anticipation of her company, or at least she thought so. “Oh, only your bridge-maker!” she used to say to him as she came up, frankly accepting the position. “I have put three new stones in to-day.” “He doesn’t treat me as if I were a woman at all!” she said to herself bitterly, “and I believe I am less of a woman than I was. I am more manly; I think less of my looks and more of my muscles. I never even knew I had any, till I came here!” She sighed. “Yes, I see I must cultivate this aspect of me, and keep the eternal feminine relentlessly down. It would frighten him, or at any rate disturb him. Would it? Ah, I dare not try. I must stay as I am, absolutely non-committal!” She sighed again. CHAPTER V Mrs. Elles had arrived at Rokeby on a Monday. When Sunday came round, she had been prepared for the usual flying in the face of Philistine custom and observance that prevailed in her own circle and imagined that the artist would go out to paint as usual or perhaps as a concession to popular prejudice stay and work indoors. But to her intense surprise and amusement, eleven o’clock on Sunday morning found her murmuring the Litany by the side of the artist in the parish church, among the placid farmers and their complacent, Sunday-bedizened wives. Mr. Rivers, it seemed, was in the habit of going to church every Sunday, and, when she discovered this, it had seemed quite natural to go with him, though it was the first time she had been inside the walls of a church since her marriage. The service, to her mind unblunted by custom, seemed very picturesque; so was the church, a beautiful specimen of pure early Gothic, and the figure of this grave, handsome man, standing by her side, with his dark head relieved against the white plaster background, most natural of all. “If anyone had told me, a month ago,” she thought, “that I should be doing this, I believe I should have laughed in his face.”