Natalie had made an error, and knew it.
"I heard that a young clergyman was taking her round," she said, and
changed the subject. But he knew that she was either lying or keeping
something from him. In those days of tension he found her half-truths
more irritating than her rather childish falsehoods. In spite of
himself, however, the thought of the young clergyman rankled.
That night, stretched in the low chair in his dressing-room, under the
reading light, he thought over things carefully. If he loved her as he
thought he did, he ought to want her to be happy. Things between them
were hopeless and wretched. If this clergyman, or Sloane, or any other
man loved her, and he groaned as he thought how lovable she was, then
why not want for her such happiness as she could find?
He slept badly that night, and for some reason Audrey wove herself into
his dreams of the new plant. The roar of the machinery took on the soft
huskiness of her voice, the deeper note he watched for and loved.