So they wrangled always; indispensable she might be to him, but peace
was certainly not what she brought him. And although they maintained the
disguise afforded by her tone of slight condescension, and by his of
conventional respect, underneath this disguise fomented the perpetual
and manifold contest, of class against class, of the rough against the
fastidious, of the man against the woman. She had very little real fear
that its full strength would ever break over her,—little real fear, only
enough to provide the spice she exacted. She trusted to her appraisement
of him: too proud to risk a rebuff; too fiercely recalcitrant under the
thongs of affection. Under their menace he snorted and reared, while she
laughed indolently, and incited him to further indignations. Yet she
held him, she held him! and though she knew full well that she fretted
and exasperated him, she held him still; seeing his struggles, but
toying with him, pretending to let him go, pulling him back, distracting
and confusing his spirit that was always beating round in the search for
escape; and all the while she heard from various quarters the pleasant
flattery of her guilt extolled under the name of charity.