THE   WINDOW
faction when she realised, at the turn of the page
when she stopped and heard dully, ominously, a
wave fall, how it came from this: she did not like,
even for a second, to feel finer than her husband;
and further, could not bear not being entirely sure,
when she spoke to him, of the truth of what
she said. Universities and people wanting him,
lectures and books and their being of the highest
importance—all that she did not doubt for a
moment; but it was their relation, and his coming
to her like that, openly, so that anyone could see,
that discomposed her; for then people said he
depended on her, when they must know that of
the two he was infinitely the more important, and
what she gave the world, in comparison with what
he gave, negligible. But then again, it was the
other thing too—not being able to tell him the
truth, being afraid, for instance, about the green-
house roof and the expense it would be, fifty
pounds perhaps, to mend it; and then about his
books, to be afraid that he might guess, what she
a little suspected, that his last book was not quite
his best book (she gathered that from William
Bankes); and then to hide small daily things, and
the children seeing it, and the burden it laid on
them—all this diminished the entire joy, the pure
joy, of the two notes sounding together, and let the
sound die on her ear now with a dismal flatness.
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