She found that he was in the habit of examining her
private papers in her absence, and that he had opened her letters and
resealed them. His manner to her was unctuous as a rule; but she knew
he lied to her without hesitation if it suited his purpose--and that
alone would have been enough to destroy her liking for him, for it is
not in the nature of such a woman to love a man who has looked her in
the face and lied to her.
These things, and the loneliness he brought upon her by driving from
her the few people with whom she had any intellectual fellowship, she
would have borne in the old uncomplaining way, but he did not stop
there.
One day she drove into town with a friend who got out to do some
shopping. Ideala waited in the carriage, which had stopped opposite a
public-house, and from where she sat she could see the little sitting-
room behind the bar, and its occupants. They were her husband and the
barmaid, who was sitting on his knee.
Ideala arranged her parasol so that they might not see her if they
chanced to look that way, and calmly resumed the conversation when her
friend returned.
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