He lost control of
himself. Amy's last reply went through him like an electric
shock, and for the moment he was a mere husband defied by his
wife, the male stung to exertion of his brute force against the
physically weaker sex.
'However you regard me, you will do what I think fit. I shall not
argue with you. If I choose to take lodgings in Whitechapel,
there you will come and live.'
He met Amy's full look, and was conscious of that in it which
corresponded to his own brutality. She had become suddenly a much
older woman; her cheeks were tight drawn into thinness, her lips
were bloodlessly hard, there was an unknown furrow along her
forehead, and she glared like the animal that defends itself with
tooth and claw.
'Do as YOU think fit? Indeed!'
Could Amy's voice sound like that? Great Heaven! With just such
accent he had heard a wrangling woman retort upon her husband at
the street corner. Is there then no essential difference between
a woman of this world and one of that? Does the same nature lie
beneath such unlike surfaces?
He had but to do one thing: to seize her by the arm, drag her up
from the chair, dash her back again with all his force--there,
the transformation would be complete, they would stand towards
each other on the natural footing.
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