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Inside of marriage she found her liberty. She was rid of the responsibility of herself. Her husband must look after that. She was free to get what she could out of her time.

So that, when, after some months, she met Sam Adams, she was not quite as unkind to him as she might have been. With a young wife’s new and exciting knowledge of men, she perceived he was in love with her, she knew he had always kept an unsatisfied desire for her. And, sportive, she could not help playing a little with this, though she cared not one jot for the man himself.

When Valentine’s day came, which was near the first anniversary of her wedding day, there arrived a white stocking with a little amethyst brooch. Luckily Whiston did not see it, so she said nothing of it to him. She had not the faintest intention of having anything to do with Sam Adams, but once a little brooch was in her possession, it was hers, and she did not trouble her head for a moment how she had come by it. She kept it.

Now she had the pearl ear-rings. They were a more valuable and a more conspicuous present. She would have to ask her mother to give them to her, to explain their presence. She made a little plan in her head. And she was extraordinarily pleased. As for Sam Adams, even if he saw her wearing them, he would not give her away. What fun, if he saw her wearing his ear-rings! She would pretend she had inherited them from her grandmother, her mother’s mother. She laughed to herself as she went down town in the afternoon, the pretty drops dangling in front of her curls. But she saw no one of importance.

Whiston came home tired and depressed. All day the male in him had been uneasy, and this had fatigued him. She was curiously against him, inclined, as she sometimes was nowadays, to make mock of him and jeer at him and cut him off. He did not understand this, and it angered him deeply. She was uneasy before him.

She knew he was in a state of suppressed irritation. The veins stood out on the backs of his hands, his brow was drawn stiffly. Yet she could not help goading him.

“What did you do wi’ that white stocking?” he asked, out of a gloomy silence, his voice strong and brutal.

“I put it in a drawer—why?” she replied flippantly.

“Why didn’t you put it on the fire back?” he said harshly. “What are you hoarding it up for?”

“I’m not hoarding it up,” she said. “I’ve got a pair. ”

He relapsed into gloomy silence. She, unable to move him, ran away upstairs, leaving him smoking by the fire. Again she tried on the earrings. Then another little inspiration came to her. She drew on the white stockings, both of them.

Presently she came down in them. Her husband still sat immovable and glowering by the fire.

“Look!” she said. “They’ll do beautifully. ”

And she picked up her skirts to her knees, and twisted round, looking at her pretty legs in the neat stockings.

He filled with unreasonable rage, and took the pipe from his mouth.

“Don’t they lo
ok nice?” she said. “One from last year and one from this, they just do. Save you buying a pair. ”

And she looked over her shoulders at her pretty calves, and the dangling frills of her knickers.

“Put your skirts down and don’t make a fool of yourself,” he said.

“Why a fool of myself?” she asked.

And she began to dance slowly round the room, kicking up her feet half reckless, half jeering, in a ballet-dancer’s fashion. Almost fearfully, yet in defiance, she kicked up her legs at him, singing as she did so. She resented him.