The Helpmate by May Sinclair — Read

Anne and her husband walked home in silence across the Park, grateful for its darkness. Majendie could well imagine that she would not want to talk. He made allowance for her repulsion; he respected it and her silence as its sign. She had every right to her resentment. He had let her in for the Hannays, who had let her in for the inconceivable encounter. On the day of her divorce Sarah Cayley had removed herself from Scale, and he had shrunk from providing for the supreme embarrassment of her return. He had looked on her as definitely, consummately departed. She had disappeared, down dingy vistas, into unimaginable obscurities. He pictured her as sunk, in Continental abysses, beyond all possibility of resurgence. And she had emerged (from abominations) smiling that indestructible smile. The incident had been unpleasant, so unpleasant that he didn't want to talk about it. All the same, he would have done violence to his feelings and apologised for it then and there, but that he really judged it better to let well alone. It was well, he thought, that Anne was so silent. She might have had a great deal to say, and it was kind of her not to say it, to let him off so easily.

Anne's interpretation of Majendie's silence was not so favourable. After being exposed to the pain and insult of Lady Cayley's presence she had expected an immediate apology, and she inferred from its omission an unpardonable complicity. Any compliance with the public toleration of that person would have been inexcusable, and he had been more than compliant, more than tolerant; he had been solicitous, attentive, deferent. And deference to such a woman was insolence to his wife. Anne was struck dumb by the shameless levity of the proceedings. The two had behaved as if nothing had happened, or rather (she bitterly corrected herself) as if everything had happened, and might happen any day again (she inferred as much from his silence). It would -- it would happen. _Her_ intentions were, to Anne's mind, unmistakable; that was plainly what she had come back for. As to his intentions, Anne was not yet clear. She had not made up her mind that they were bad; but she shuddered as she said to herself that he was "weak. " He had come at that woman's call; he had hung round her; he had waited on her at her bidding; at her bidding he had sat down beside her; he had listened to her, attracted, charmed, delighted; he had talked to her in the low voice Anne knew. How could she tell what had or had not passed between them there, what intimacies, what recognitions, what resurrections of the corrupt, ill-buried past? He had been "weak -- weak -- weak. " Henceforth she must reckon with his weakness, and reckoning with it, she must keep him from that woman by any method, and at any cost! It was something that he had the grace to be ashamed of himself (another inference from his silence). No wonder, after that communion, if he was ashamed to look at his wife or speak to her.