And on Ethel lay long, vacant, lonely hours in dull
surroundings. Differences arose from the most indifferent things; one
night Lewisham lay awake in unfathomable amazement because she had
convinced him she did not care a rap for the Welfare of Humanity, and
deemed his Socialism a fancy and an indiscretion. And one Sunday
afternoon they started for a walk under the pleasantest auspices, and
returned flushed and angry, satire and retort flying free--on the
score of the social conventions in Ethel's novelettes. For some
inexplicable reason Lewisham saw fit to hate her novelettes very
bitterly. These encounters indeed were mere skirmishes for the most
part, and the silences and embarrassments that followed ended sooner
or later in a "making up," tacit or definite, though once or twice
this making up only re-opened the healing wound. And always each
skirmish left its scar, effaced from yet another line of their lives
the lingering tints of romantic colour.
There came no work, no added income for either of them, saving two
trifles, for five long months. Once Lewisham won twelve shillings in
the prize competition of a penny weekly, and three times came
infinitesimal portions of typewriting from a poet who had apparently
seen the _Athenaeum_ advertisement.
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