Miss Beggs couldn't have noticed
this, for scarcely ever did her gaze meet his; she had a habit of
standing lost in thought, her slimness a little drooping, as if she
were weary or depressed. She was in his mind continually--Miss Beggs
and Emmy, his wife.
The latter had a surprising power to disturb him; lately he had even
dreamed of her starving to death in the presence of abundant food. He
began to be superstitious about it, to think of her in a ridiculous
nervous manner as an evil design on his peace and security. She seemed
unnatural with her shrunken face bowed opposite him at the table. His
feeling for her shifted subconsciously to hatred. It broke out publicly
in sardonic or angry periods under which she would shrink away,
incredibly timid, from his scorn. This quality of utter helplessness
gave the menace he divined in her its illusive air of unreality. She
seemed--she was--entirely helpless; a prematurely aged woman, of the
mildest instincts, dying of malnutrition.
Miss Beggs now merged into all his daily life, his very fiber. He
regarded her in an attitude of admirable frankness. "Still it is
extraordinary you haven't married."
The tide was out, it was late afternoon, and they were walking over the
hard exposed sand. Whenever she came on a shell she crushed it with a
sharp heel.
"There were some," she replied indifferently.
He nodded gravely. "It would have to be a special kind of man," he
agreed. "An ordinary individual would be crushed by your personality.
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