Sinking back in her chair, Gyp sat motionless. Bees were murmurous among
her flowers, pigeons murmurous among the trees; the sunlight warmed her
knees, and her stretched-out feet through the openwork of her stockings.
The maid's laughter, the delicious growling of the puppies at play in
the kitchen came drifting down the garden, with the distant cry of a
milkman up the road. All was very peaceful. But in her heart were such
curious, baffled emotions, such strange, tangled feelings. This moment
of enlightenment regarding the measure of her husband's frankness came
close on the heels of the moment fate had chosen for another revelation,
for clinching within her a fear felt for weeks past. She had said to
Winton that she did not want to have a child. In those conscious that
their birth has caused death or even too great suffering, there is
sometimes this hostile instinct. She had not even the consolation that
Fiorsen wanted children; she knew that he did not. And now she was sure
one was coming. But it was more than that. She had not reached, and
knew she could not reach, that point of spirit-union which alone makes
marriage sacred, and the sacrifices demanded by motherhood a joy. She
was fairly caught in the web of her foolish and presumptuous mistake! So
few months of marriage--and so sure that it was a failure, so hopeless
for the future! In the light of this new certainty, it was terrifying.
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