She was already in bed, and he came and sat on the foot of the bed, with one foot tucked under him and his arms folded.
Her mind during the interval had been exclusively occupied with the position of that piece of blotting-paper.

Could it be there was some other woman whose ghost-like presence she was just beginning to feel haunting their relation?
The impersonality of Vincent's manner was an armor against such attacks, but this armor, as Adelaide knew, was more apparent than real.

If one could get beyond that, one was at the very heart of the man.

If some fortuitous circumstance had brought a sudden accidental intimacy between him and another woman--What woman loving strength and power could resist the sight of Vincent in action, Vincent as she saw him?
Yet with a good capacity for believing the worst of her fellow-creatures, Adelaide did not really believe in the other woman.

That, she knew, would bring a change in the fundamentals of her relationship with her husband.