His offer of marriage she put aside from her thoughts. Morland was the irrevocably accepted. It was February. Easter falling early, the wedding would take place in a little over a month. In a cold, dispassionate way, she interested herself in the usual preparations. Peace reigned in Devonshire Place. And yet Norma despised herself, feeling the degradation of the woman who sells her body.
During the session she saw little of Morland. For this she thanked God, the duchess, and the electors of Cosford. The sense of freedom caused her to repent of her contemptuous attitude towards his political aspirations. To encourage and foster them would be to her very great advantage. She adopted this policy, much to the edification of Morland, who felt the strengthening of a common bond of interest. He regularly balloted for seats in the Ladies' Gallery, and condemned her to sit for hours behind the grating and listen to uninspiring debates. He came to her with the gossip of the lobbies. He made plans for their future life together. They would make politics a feature of their house. It would be a rallying-place for the new Tory wing, in which Morland after a dinner at the Carlton Club when his health was proposed in flattering terms, had found himself enlisted. Norma was to bring back the glories of the _salon_.
“When it gets too thick,” he said once laughingly, ashamed of these wanderings into the ideal, “we can go off into the country and shoot and have some decent people down and amuse ourselves rationally.”
Yet, in spite of absorbing political toys, his complete subjugation of Norma, and the smiling aspect of life, a sense of utter wretchedness weighed upon the soul of this half-developed man. He could not shake it off. It haunted him as he sat stolid and stupefied in his place below the gangway. It dulled all sensation of pleasure when he kissed the lips which Norma, resigned now to everything, surrendered to him at his pleasure. It took the sparkle out of his champagne, the joy out of his life. Now that he had asserted himself as the victorious male who had won the female that he coveted, the sense of wrong inflicted on him grew less and the consciousness of his own shame grew greater. In his shallow way he had loved Jimmie dearly. He also had the well-bred Englishman's conventional sense of honour. Accusing conscience wrote him down an unutterable knave.