Paul was very kind to her during their stay at Little Harben, but they recovered none of that old friendship that had been theirs before they married.Too many things were now between them.By the end of that month Maggie longed to return to Skeaton.It was not only that she felt crushed and choked by the strangling green that hemmed in the old house--the weeds and the trees, and the plants seemed to draw in the night closer and closer about the windows and doors--but also solitude with Paul was revealing to her, in a ruthless, cruel manner, his weaknesses.They were none of them, perhaps, very terrible, but she did not wish to see them.She would like to shut her eyes to them all.If she lost that friendly kindness that she felt for him then indeed she had lost everything.
She felt as though he were wilfully trying to tug it away from her.
Why was it that she had never shrunk from the faults of Martin and Uncle Mathew--faults so plain and obvious--and now shrunk from Paul's? Paul's were such little ones--a desire for praise and appreciation, a readiness to be cheated into believing that all was well when he knew that things were very wrong, an eagerness to be liked even by quite worthless people, sloth and laziness, living lies that were of no importance save as sign-posts to the cowardice of his soul.Yes, cowardice! That was the worst of all.Was it his religion that had made him cowardly? Why was Maggie so terribly certain that if the necessity for physical defence of her or some helpless creature arose Paul would evade it and talk about "turning the other cheek"? He was so large a man and so soft--a terrific egoist finally, in the centre of his soul, an egoist barricaded by superstitions and fears and lies, but not a ruthless egoist, because that demanded energy.
And yet, with all this, he had so many good points.He was a child, a baby, like so many clergymen.Even her father could have been defended by that plea...