`She doesn't look very amiable,' he replied.
`No, but don't you think she's a fine woman?' she said, in a deep tone.
`Yes--in stature. But without a grain of taste. I like her for some things. Is she disagreeable?'
`I don't think so. I think she's dissatisfied.'
`What with?'
`Well--how would you like to be tied for life to a man like that?'
`Why did she marry him, then, if she was to have revulsions so soon?'
`Ay, why did she!' repeated Miriam bitterly.
`And I should have thought she had enough fight in her to match him,' he said.
Miriam bowed her head.
`Ay?' she queried satirically. `What makes you think so?'
`Look at her mouth--made for passion--and the very setback of her throat--' He threw his head back in Clara's defiant manner.
Miriam bowed a little lower.
`Yes,' she said.
There was a silence for some moments, while he thought of Clara.
`And what were the things you liked about her?' she asked.
`I don't know--her skin and the texture of her--and her--I don't know--there's a sort of fierceness somewhere in her. I appreciate her as an artist, that's all.'
`Yes.'
He wondered why Miriam crouched there brooding in that strange way. It irritated him.
`You don't really like her, do you?' he asked the girl.
She looked at him with her great, dazzled dark eyes.
`I do,' she said.
`You don't--you can't--not really.'
`Then what?' she asked slowly.
`Eh, I don't know--perhaps you like her because she's got a grudge against men.'
That was more probably one of his own reasons for liking Mrs Dawes, but this did not occur to him. They were silent. There had come into his forehead a knitting of the brows which was becoming habitual with him, particularly when he was with Miriam. She longed to smooth it away, and she was afraid of it. It seemed the stamp of a man who was not her man in Paul Morel.