Dr. Raste, or anybody else, looking at the couple lying beneath Violet's splendid eiderdown (which still by contrast intensified the dowdiness and shabbiness of the rest of the room) would have seen merely a middle-aged man and a middle-aged woman with haggard faces worn by illness, fatigue, privations and fear. But Henry did not picture himself and Violet thus; nor Violet herself and Henry. Henry did not feel middle-aged. He did not feel himself to be any particular age. His interest in life and in his own existence had not diminished during the enormous length of time which had elapsed since he first came into Riceyman Steps as a young man. In his heart he felt no older than on that first night. He did not feel that he now in the least corresponded to his youthful conception of a middle-aged man. He did not feel that he was as old as other men whom he knew to be of about his own age. He thought that he alone had mysteriously remained young among his generation. For him his grey hairs had no significance; they were an accident. Then in regard to his notion of Violet. He knew that all women were alike, but with one exception--Violet. Women were women, and Violet was thrice a woman. He was aware of her age arithmetically, for he had seen her birth-certificate. But in practice she was a girl--well, perhaps a little more than a girl, but not much more. And she had for him a romantic quality perceptible in no other woman. He admired certain efficiencies in her, but he could not have said why she was so important to him, nor why he was vaguely afraid of her frown--why it was so urgent for him to stand well with her. He could defeat her in battle. He had more common sense than she had, more authority, a surer grasp of things; he could see farther; he was more straightforward. In fact, a superior being! Further, she had crossed him, sided with the doctor against him, made him resentful. Therefore, if justice reigned, she ought to be placating him. Instead, he was anxious to placate her.
And, on her part, Violet saw in Henry a man not of any age, simply a man: egotistic, ruthless, childish, naughty, illogical, incalculable, the supreme worry of her life; a destroyer of happiness; a man indefensible for his misdeeds, but very powerful and inexplicably romantic, different from all other men whatsoever. She hated him; her resentment against him was very keen, and yet she wanted to fondle him, physically and spiritually; and this desire maintained itself not without success in opposition to all her grievances, and, compared to it, her sufferings and his had but a minor consequence.