. . . At the recollection of the way her knowing hands would suddenly grip him across the small of the back at the climax of their love-­making—the way she would cry out the single syllable of his name in a half gasp, half whisper—his legs went limp and his heart jumped. At such times, all else was right for days after; he was a different husband then, happy in his work, happy with his home, his children, his wife, seeing his wife in fact (then and only then) as the ideal companion of his life, the woman he loved because she made of him a man fulfilled. Sex, ignored, stood like a chilling stranger between them, too important, too demanding; satisfied, it became one with the other comforting pleasures of ordinary existence, scarcely thought of; the tensed atmosphere of their life together cleared up, humor was restored, a perfect balance in the routine of their relationship once more maintained itself, so that it almost seemed (then and only then) as if their love had little to do with sex. In all his life he had found no better, no other love. How unfair, then, to make love to Ethel only when circumstance chanced to place them together in the same bed or room, as it would tonight. They loved one another, they had no one else, and life was so short. It was so easily within his grasp to give Ethel the happiness she wanted and needed, and thus re-­establish his own happiness too; cruel to make her wait, and wonder, and so seldom know. What a waste to spend his nights poring over the same familiar books while his marriage went stale, forgotten by him, a rebuke and a humiliation to her. For the first time he was glad he had not insisted that she bring the children with her to Sconset, for now the holiday ahead seemed to promise him the opportunity of recapturing the wife he had been too long without. With a kind of excitement like youth, he dwelt on what their night together in the hotel room would be like, their week, their two weeks. Eagerly he welcomed the chance to make it up to her, to wipe out his long indifference. Love-­making could be a habit one could fall into again as much as the habit of neglect; and when Ethel returned with him to New York, he would abandon his couch in the study and move back to her room, their old room, where he had once belonged.