This surly and terrorising ferocity of Tellwright's was as instinctive¹ as the growl² and spring of a beast of prey³. He never considered his attitude towards the women of his household as an unusual phenomenon which needed justification⁴, or as being in the least abnormal. The women of a household were the natural victims of their master: in his experience it had always been so. In his experience the master had always, by universal consent, possessed⁵ certain rights over the self-respect, the happiness and the peace of the defenceless souls set under him—rights as unquestioned as those exercised by Ivan the Terrible. Such rights were rooted in the secret nature of things. It was futile⁶ to discuss them, because their necessity and their propriety⁷ were equally obvious. Tellwright would not have been angry with any man who impugned⁸ them: he would merely have regarded the fellow as a crank and a born fool, on whom logic⁹ or indignation would be entirely¹⁰ wasted. He did as his father and uncles had done. He still thought of his father as a grim customer, infinitely¹¹ more redoubtable¹² than himself. He really believed that parents spoiled their children nowadays: to be knocked down by a single blow was one of the punishments of his own generation. He could recall the fearful timidity of his mother's eyes without a trace of

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