But how, in the other implications of such a scene, would he act? Until
now his part in the inevitable frictions of matrimony had been
conditioned by a tenderness toward Fanny and a measurable supporting
belief that he was generally to blame. She had reduced him to the
compounding of excuses; after her attack, drawing away, she had managed
to make him follow her. Not cheaply, with the vulgarity of a gift, a
price outheld, but with the repeated assertions of his endless love.
Nothing less satisfied her. In this she was superior. But, even if he
surrendered his life to the effort, could he keep up that pretence of a
passion unimpaired? And had he, Lee asked himself over and over, the
wish, the patience, for that heavy undertaking?
It was still fairly evident that he hadn't. All that he could hope for,
which they both could summon, was luck and the deadening hands of time.
He told himself, here, that it was more than probable that he was
exaggerating the proportions of the whole situation--Fanny had been
angry before; her resentment faded the sooner for its swift explosive
character. But this assurance was unconvincing; his presentiment, which
didn't rest on reason, was not amenable to a reasonable conclusion. Of
this he was certain, that Fanny never had harbored the suspicion of
what, for her, would be the very worst. Did she know? If she did, he
decided, it was only in the form of an unanalyzed, unidentified,
feeling.
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