Doomsday by Warwick Deeping

It would appear that Mrs. Sarah knew her Mary better than Mary knew herself. The temptress had raised the edge of the curtain, and there was more behind Mary's fall than a natural and irresponsible curiosity. She was a twentieth century Eve. When romance offered itself, she fingered the magic garment, turned up the lining, and tried to estimate its wearing qualities. Such caution may be held to be either wise or foolish, balancing on a knife edge, or trying to teach nature to turn a wheel in a cage. People who wade cautiously into life like a timid girl paddling on a rather bleak foreshore are apt to be too conscious of the existence of crabs and pebbles. Nature prefers the plunger. Or you may more quickly learn to swim by being pushed into the deeps.

She left her bicycle against the gate and returned down the path. The eyes of the house looked at her, and she translated into their stare the varied thoughts and feelings of the moment. They reproached her; they were hostile; they hid things that she had a right to know; they challenged; they were both shy and sad. Surely a woman is justified in exploring that corner of life into which a man is devotedly seeking to inveigle her? Woman's eyes see what a man's might miss, or they see them differently. The house is the woman's workshop. Why should she not inspect it before agreeing to work there?