It says all there is to say at
once. With writing it seems to me there's so much"--she paused for an
expression, and rubbed her fingers in the earth--"scratching on the
matchbox. Most of the time when I was reading Gibbon this afternoon
I was horribly, oh infernally, damnably bored!" She gave a shake of
laughter, looking at Hewet, who laughed too.
"_I_ shan't lend you books," he remarked.
"Why is it," Rachel continued, "that I can laugh at Mr. Hirst to you,
but not to his face? At tea I was completely overwhelmed, not by his
ugliness--by his mind." She enclosed a circle in the air with her hands.
She realised with a great sense of comfort who easily she could talk
to Hewet, those thorns or ragged corners which tear the surface of some
relationships being smoothed away.
"So I observed," said Hewet. "That's a thing that never ceases to amaze
me." He had recovered his composure to such an extent that he could
light and smoke a cigarette, and feeling her ease, became happy and easy
himself.
"The respect that women, even well-educated, very able women, have for
men," he went on. "I believe we must have the sort of power over you
that we're said to have over horses. They see us three times as big as
we are or they'd never obey us. For that very reason, I'm inclined to
doubt that you'll ever do anything even when you have the vote.
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