And the fantastic thought suddenly assailed him if instead of, 'I think you had better go,' she had said, 'I think you had better stay!' What should he have felt, what would he have done?
That cursed attraction of her was there for him even now, after all these years of estrangement and bitter thoughts.

It was there, ready to mount to his head at a sign, a touch.

'I was a fool to go!' he muttered.

'I've advanced nothing.

Who could imagine?
I never thought!' Memory, flown back to the first years of his marriage, played him torturing tricks.
She had not deserved to keep her beauty--the beauty he had owned and known so well.