More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“From a social standpoint the man of science does not exist,” he smiled.
A bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, he told her, to which she retorted that a proverb was the last refuge of the mentally destitute.
He had a way which exasperated her of returning no answer to some casual remark of hers. It was true that it needed no answer, but an answer all the same would have been pleasant. If it was raining and she said: “It’s raining cats and dogs,” she would have liked him to say: “Yes, isn’t it?” He remained silent. Sometimes she would have liked to shake him. “I said it was raining cats and dogs,” she repeated. “I heard you,” he answered, with his affectionate smile. It showed that he had not meant to be offensive. He did not speak because he had nothing to say. But if nobody spoke unless he had
...more
“One can be very much in love with a woman without wishing to spend the rest of one’s life with her.” She gave him a quick look and despair seized her. Heavy tears rolled down her cheeks. “Oh, how cruel! How can you be so heartless?”
She alone had been blind to his merit. Why? Because he loved her and she did not love him. What was it in the human heart that made you despise a man because he loved you?
She was beginning to feel a trifle impatient with him. Why could he not realise, what suddenly had become so clear to her, that beside all the terror of death under whose shadow they lay and beside the awe of the beauty which she had caught a glimpse of that day, their own affairs were trivial? What did it really matter if a silly woman had committed adultery and why should her husband, face to face with the sublime, give it a thought? It was strange that Walter with all his cleverness should have so little sense of proportion.
She was startled at herself for feeling as she did; she supposed that people would think her heartless and cruel if they knew. Well, they shouldn’t know. She wondered if all her fellows had in their hearts shameful secrets which they spent their time guarding from curious glances.
