about Socialism, about aesthetics--the very words appalled her, gave her
the faint chill of approaching impropriety, the terror of a very present
intellectual impossibility. Then by an enormous effort I would suppress
myself for a time and continue a talk that made her happy, about
Smithie's brother, about the new girl who had come to the workroom,
about the house we would presently live in. But there we differed
a little. I wanted to be accessible to St. Paul's or Cannon Street
Station, and she had set her mind quite resolutely upon Eating.... It
wasn't by any means quarreling all the time, you understand. She liked
me to play the lover "nicely"; she liked the effect of going about--we
had lunches, we went to Earl's Court, to Kew, to theatres and concerts,
but not often to concerts, because, though Marion "liked" music,
she didn't like "too much of it," to picture shows--and there was a
nonsensical sort of babytalk I picked up--I forget where now--that
became a mighty peacemaker.

Her worst offence for me was an occasional excursion into the Smithie
style of dressing, debased West Kensington. For she had no sense at all
of her own beauty. She had no comprehension whatever of beauty of the
body, and she could slash her beautiful lines to rags with hat-brims and
trimmings. Thank Heaven! a natural refinement, a natural timidity,
and her extremely slender purse kept her from the real Smithie
efflorescence! Poor, simple, beautiful, kindly limited Marion! Now that
I am forty-five, I can look back at her with all my old admiration
and none of my old bitterness with a new affection and not a scrap
of passion, and take her part against the equally stupid,
drivingly-energetic, sensuous, intellectual sprawl I used to be. I was
a young beast for her to have married--a hound beast. With her it was
my business to understand and control--and I exacted fellowship,
passion....