Part Second: A Young Man of Forty Chapter 12 A Grille Descends Between

'But I am sure, sir, the gentlemen in the street were more respectable than they are anywhere at home! They were dressed in the latest fashion, and would have scorned to do me any harm; and as to their love-making, I never heard anything so polite before.'

'Well, you must not do it again. I'll tell you some day why. What's that you have in your hand?'

'A mouse-trap. There are lots of mice in this kitchen--sooty mice, not clean like ours--and I thought I'd try to catch them. That was what I went so far to buy, as there were no shops open just about here. I'll set it now.'

She proceeded at once to do so, and Pierston remained in his seat regarding the operation, which seemed entirely to engross her. It was extraordinary, indeed, to observe how she wilfully limited her interests; with what content she received the ordinary things that life offered, and persistently refused to behold what an infinitely extended life lay open to her through him. If she had only said the word he would have got a licence and married her the next morning. Was it possible that she did not perceive this tendency in him? She could hardly be a woman if she did not; and in her airy, elusive, offhand demeanour she was very much of a woman indeed.

'It only holds one mouse,' he said absently.