The fare she had
provided at the dinners they gave had been much less bountiful
and not nearly so costly as had been the case in preceding years,
and Edward began to perceive a hardness and determination in his
wife's character. He seemed to see a net closing round him--a net
in which they would be forced to live like one of the
comparatively poor county families of the neighbourhood. And, in
the mysterious way in which two people, living together, get to
know each other's thoughts without a word spoken, he had known,
even before his outbreak, that Leonora was worrying about his
managing of the estates. This appeared to him to be intolerable.
He had, too, a great feeling of self-contempt because he had been
betrayed into speaking harshly to Leonora before that
land-steward. She imagined that his nerve must be deserting him,
and there can have been few men more miserable than Edward
was at that period. You see, he was really a very simple
soul--very simple. He imagined that no man can satisfactorily
accomplish his life's work without loyal and whole-hearted
cooperation of the woman he lives with. And he was beginning to
perceive dimly that, whereas his own traditions were entirely
collective, his wife was a sheer individualist.
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