It hurts even before habit is acquired ...

they say.

Louis Malcourt says so.

And if that is true--can you wonder that poor Mr.Wayward looks like death?
I speak in all sympathy and kindness--as did Mr.Malcourt." So _that_ was it! Constance stared at her own fair face in the mirror, and deep into the pained brown eyes reflected there.

The eyes suddenly dimmed and the parted mouth quivered.
So that was the dreadful trouble!--the explanation of the recent change in him--the deep lines of pain from the wing of the pinched nostril--the haunted gaze, the long, restless silences, the forced humour and its bitter flavour tainting voice and word! And she had believed--feared with a certainty almost hopeless--that it was his old vice, slowly, inexorably transforming what was left of the man she had known so long and cared for so loyally through all these strange, confusing years.
From the mirror the oval of her own fresh unravaged face, framed in the burnished brown of her hair, confronted her like a wraith of the past; and, dreaming there, wide-eyed, expressionless, she seemed to see again the old-time parlour set with rosewood; and the faded roses in the carpet; and, through the half-drawn curtains, spring sunlight falling on a boy and a little girl.
Virginia, partly dressed for dinner, rose and went to the window, frail restless hands clasped behind her back, and stood there gazing out at the fading daylight.