She was glad to enter her own, where beauty and luxury lived together.
The carpet was soft to her feet, a small wood fire burned in the
grate, for the evening promised to be cold, and the severe lines of
the furniture were clean and exquisite against the white walls. A pale
soft dressing-gown hung across a chair, a little handkerchief, as fine
as lace, lay crumpled on a table, there was a discreet gleam of silver
and tortoiseshell. This, at least, was the room of a living person.
Yet, as she stood before the cheval-glass, studying herself after the
habit of the Malletts, she thought perhaps she was less truly living
than Reginald in his grave. He left a memory of animation, of sin, of
charm; he had injured other people all his life, but they regretted
him and, presumably, he had had his pleasure out of their pain. And
what was she, standing there? A negatively virtuous young woman,
without enough desire of any kind to impel her to trample over
feelings, creeds and codes. If she died that moment, it would be said
of her that she was beautiful, and that was all. Reginald, with his
greed, his heartlessness, his indifference to all that did not serve
him, would not be forgotten: people would sigh and smile at the
mention of his name, hate him and wish him back. She envied him; she
wished she could feel in swift, passionate gusts as he had done, with
the force and the forgetfulness of a passing wind. His life, flecked
with disgrace, must also have been rich with temporary but memorable
beauty. The exterior of her own was all beauty, of person and
surroundings, but within there seemed to be only a cold waste.

She had been tempted the other afternoon, and she had resisted with
what seemed to her a despicable ease: she had not really cared, and
she felt that the necessity to struggle, even the collapse of her
resistance, would have argued better for her than her self-possession.
And for a moment she wished she had married Francis Sales. She would