and the way the lines round his eyes wrinkled when he smiled; she knew
how to make him smile and now and then they had happy interludes when
they talked about crops and horses, profit and loss, the buying and
selling of stock, and felt their friendship for each other like a
mantle shared.

At the worst, she consoled herself, after a time of strain, it was
like riding a restive horse. There was danger which she loved: there
was need of skill and a light hand, of sympathy and tact, and she
never regretted the superman who was to have ruled her with a
fatiguing rod of iron. Here there was give and take; she had to let
him have his head and pull him up at the right moment and reward
docility with kindness; she even found a kind of pleasure, streaked
with disgust, in dealing with Christabel's suspicions, half expressed,
but present like shadowy people in her room.

Of these she never spoke to Francis, but she had a malicious affection
for them; they had, as it were, done her a good turn, and though they
hid like secret enemies in the corners, she recognized them as allies.
And they looked so much worse than they were. She imagined them
showing very ugly faces to Christabel, who could only judge them by
their looks, and though it was cruel that she should be frightened by
them, it was impossible to drive them away. Rose could only sit calmly
in their presence and try to create an atmosphere of safety. She knew
she ought to feel hypocritical in this attendance on her lover's wife,
but it was not of her choosing. She did not like Christabel, she would
have been glad never to see her again and, terrible as her situation
was, it appealed to Rose less then it would have done if she had not
herself come of people whose tradition was one of stoicism in trouble,
of pride which refused to reveal its distress. Physically, Christabel