The fortnight he had been in Priorsford had given her an entirely new idea of what life might mean.

She had not been happy all the time: she had been afflicted with vague discontents and jealousies such as she had not known before, but at the back of them all she was conscious of a shining happiness, something that illuminated and gave a new value to all the commonplace daily doings.

Now, as in a flash, while they waited for the door to open, Jean knew what had caused the happiness, and realised that with her own hand she was shutting the door on the light, shutting herself out to a perpetual twilight.
"If only you hadn't been a man," she said miserably, "we might have been such friends." A servant opened the door and they went in together..