Up till now he had been unaware of the grip she had on him. He had never allowed for the possibility of permanence in his relations with her sex. The idea of marriage was peculiarly unsupportable to him. Even in his youth he had had no love affairs, avowed and sanctioned. Though Marston professed the utmost devotion to women like Miss Lucy, the women whom his mother and his sisters knew, he had noticed a little sadly that he soon wearied of their society, that he had no power of sustained communion with the good. The unfallen were for him the unapproachable. Therefore he had gravitated by taste and temperament to the women of the underworld. There his incurable fastidiousness drove him to the pursuit of a possible perfection, distinction within the limits, the inherent frailties of the type.
In Kitty Tailleur he had found even more than he was looking for. Kitty had certain graces, reminiscent of the upper world; a heritage from presumably irreproachable parents, that marked her from the women of her class. She had, moreover, a way of her own, different from the charm of the unfallen, different, too, from the coarse lures of the underworld. Kitty was never rank, never insipid. She had a few light brains in her body, and knew how to use them, woman-like, for the heightening of her charm.
There were other good points about Kitty. Marston disliked parting with his money, and he had found Kitty, so far, inexpensive, as women went.
For these reasons, so many and so plausible that they disguised the true kind and degree of his subjection, he had before now returned to Kitty more than once after he thought that he had tired of her.
Only three weeks ago, on her return from Matlock, he judged that he had come to the end of his passion for her; and here he was again at the very beginning of it. Instead of perishing it had thrived on absence. He found himself on the verge of a new and unforeseen adventure, with impulse sharpened by antagonism and frustration. Yet his only chance, he knew, was not to be impulsive, but cool rather, calculating and cautious. The fight he was in for would have to be fought with brains; his against hers.
He sent a note to her early in the morning asking her to see him at nine. At nine she saw him.