Page 439 - tender-is-the-night

tism of his intelligence, sometimes exercised without power
but always with substrata of truth under truth which she
could not break or even crack. Again she struggled with it,
fighting him with her small, fine eyes, with the plush arro-
gance of a top dog, with her nascent transference to another
man, with the accumulated resentment of years; she fought
him with her money and her faith that her sister disliked
him and was behind her now; with the thought of the new
enemies he was making with his bitterness, with her quick
guile against his wine-ing and dine-ing slowness, her health
and beauty against his physical deterioration, her unscru-
pulousness against his moralities—for this inner battle she
used even her weaknesses— fighting bravely and coura-
geously with the old cans and crockery and bottles, empty
receptacles of her expiated sins, outrages, mistakes. And
suddenly, in the space of two minutes she achieved her vic-
tory and justified herself to herself without lie or subterfuge,
cut the cord forever. Then she walked, weak in the legs, and
sobbing coolly, toward the household that was hers at last.
Dick waited until she was out of sight. Then he leaned his
head forward on the parapet. The case was finished. Doctor
Diver was at liberty.

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