He wanted time to think. He wanted a chance to separate the hateful picture he had of himself from his real self, so that he could stand back and decide what to do. There was a phrase that kept coming into his mind that filled his eyes with tears of shame: “a wife and family around his neck.” That was the phrase, and it kept torturing him. “He has a wife and family around his neck now.” It was a common enough phrase, and he couldn’t understand why it kept haunting him, because it didn’t describe his case and didn’t describe his attitude to Delia and the children. That was not how he felt about them. His life was not so small that it could be dismissed in a cheap phrase like that. His life had not come to that, because he was not the sort of man who could be reduced like that. He was not an ordinary man. He, Martin Bagot, might be described as having a wife and family “in the background” but never “around his neck.” That’s why he wanted time to think, so that he could free himself once and for all from the hateful self who behaved like a poor wretch with a wife and family around his neck. He detested the house when he felt like this, because he felt the house transformed him. When he was away from home he was all right, and able to convince himself that Delia was all right. After all, she had the house and the children, and what more did she want. She had a life of her own. That is what he told himself. But then the minute he got home he felt harassed and pursued, as though the house were full of people all waiting for him to say the one word that would make them all happy.

She seemed to have no resources of her own. When she looked at him, the expression in her eyes put him on edge. He was always afraid she would say something that would bring the house down around his ears before he had time to decide what he was going to do. And now, on the morning of their anniversary, when she left the room after that significant hesitation, he had a sudden feeling of fondness for her, and of gratitude that she had said nothing to make him uncomfortable. Perhaps, after all, she understood. He didn’t pause to wonder about what she understood, what it might be, or anything like that. With her silence still glowing about him he felt relieved and happy, and he felt justified, as though he had held a course with difficulty and at great cost to himself, and had gained a victory that was well deserved, although he had never dared hope for it. He felt better than he had felt for a long time, and he ate his breakfast with appetite.