The attitude seemed to relieve her. She remained there for a
long time, scarcely thinking at all, only feeling degraded, unclean. The
sight of physical violence in her own drawing-room, caused by her, had
worked havoc in her. She had always thought she understood the brute in
man. She had often consciously administered to it. She had coaxed it,
flattered it, played upon it even--surely--loved it. Now she had suddenly
seen it rush out into the full light, and it had turned her sick.
The gold things on the dressing-table--bottles, brushes, boxes,
trays--looked offensive. They were like lies against life, frauds.
Everything in the pretty room was like a lie and a fraud. There ought to
be dirt, ugliness about her. She ought to stand with her feet in mud and
look on blackness. The angel in her shuddered at the siren in her now, as
at a witch with power to evoke Satanic things, and she forgot the
trembling of her hands in the sensation of the trembling of her soul. The
blow of Fritz, the blow of Leo Ulford, had both struck her. She felt a
beaten creature.
The door opened. She did not turn round, but she saw in the glass her
husband come in. His coat was torn. His waistcoat and shirt were almost
in rags. There was blood on his face and on his right hand. In his eyes
there was an extraordinary light, utterly unlike the light of
intelligence, but brilliant, startling; flame from the fire by which the
animal in human nature warms itself.
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