I should defend the
wrong that I had once identified myself with. I should become everything that I
see now beforehand to be detestable. And what's more, I should do this, as men
are doing it every day, for a ridiculously small prize - perhaps for none at all
- perhaps for the sake of two parlours, a rank eligible for the
church-wardenship, a discontented wife and several unhopeful children.«
    Esther felt a terrible pressure on her heart - the certainty of her
remoteness from Felix - the sense that she was utterly trivial to him.
    »The other thing that's got into my mind like a splinter,« said Felix, after
a pause, »is the life of the miserable - the spawning life of vice and hunger.
I'll never be one of the sleek dogs. The old Catholics are right, with their
higher rule and their lower. Some are called to subject themselves to a harder
discipline, and renounce things voluntarily which are lawful for others. It is
the old word - necessity is laid upon me.«
    »It seems to me you are stricter than my father is.«
    »No! I quarrel with no delight that is not base or cruel, but one must
sometimes accommodate one's self to a small share. That is the lot of the
majority. I would wish the minority joy, only they don't want my wishes.«
    Again there was silence. Esther's cheeks were hot in spite of the breeze
that sent her hair floating backward. She felt an inward strain, a demand on her
to see things in a light that was not easy or soothing. When Felix had asked her
to walk, he had seemed so kind, so alive to what might be her feelings, that she
had thought herself nearer to him than she had ever been before; but since they
had come out, he had appeared to forget all that. And yet she was conscious that
this impatience of hers was very petty. Battling in this way with her own little
impulses, and looking at the birch-stems opposite till her gaze was too wide for
her to see anything distinctly, she was unaware how long they had remained
without speaking. She did not know that Felix had changed his attitude a little,
and was resting his elbow on the tree-trunk, while he supported his head, which
was turned towards her. Suddenly he said, in a lower tone than was habitual to
him -
    »You are very beautiful.«
    She started and looked round at him, to see whether his