She loved him—oh, there was no question that she didn’t love him; but how long could she go on loving a man who wasn’t there? True, he had tried to pay a certain amount of attention to her on the boat, at first, tried to patch up a quarrel which he had sensed at once was in the air, but that had been mere politeness, habit, and pride. It made things easier for him if outwardly everything looked all right. That was all he really wanted: the semblance of order and harmony. Provided the outward appearances of husband-­and-­wifely unity were kept up, basic troubles could be ignored as if they didn’t exist, ignored forever and ever till they finally didn’t matter any more. He could do that; but she couldn’t.

While the boat waited at Oak Bluffs, he had given her her opportunity to speak; and she had failed. The moment having come, she found herself fumbling helplessly, and somehow the advantage had passed from her to him: as always, he became the one who did the attacking, not she. Why was it always like that? Her emotion and her love were truly too deep for words, while he—he could carry on glibly, devastatingly, through any impasse that came up between them, unanswerable and always victorious. Her misery had been so keen that she had found herself longing for the Haumans to return, the Haumans for whom she did not give a damn; when they did return, it had been more of a relief to her than they or he could possibly have known. A strange reversal had taken place, for which no one was responsible but herself. She was the one who was putting it off, thrusting it far into the background, taking refuge in the company of strangers. This, somehow, was the crowning humiliation; far from bringing the matter into the open and facing it, out of cowardice she was helping her husband to cover it up.