In spite of my ill-concealed bias² in favour of Lady Harman I have to confess that she began this conflict rashly, planlessly, with no equipment and no definite end. Particularly I would emphasize that she had no definite end. She had wanted merely to establish a right to go out by herself occasionally, exercise a certain choice of friends, take on in fact the privileges of a grown-up person, and in asserting that she had never anticipated that the participation⁴ of the household would be invoked⁵, or that a general breach⁶ might open between herself and her husband. It had seemed just a definite little point at issue, but at Sir Isaac's angry touch a dozen other matters that had seemed safely remote, matters she had never yet quite properly thought about, had been drawn⁷ into controversy⁸. It was not only that he drew in things from outside; he evoked⁹ things within herself. She discovered she was disposed to fight not simply to establish certain liberties for herself but also—which had certainly not been in her mind before—to keep her husband away from herself. Something latent in the situation had surprised her with this effect. It had arisen out of the quarrel like a sharpshooter out of an ambuscade. Her right to go out alone had now only the value of a mere³ pretext¹⁰ for far more extensive independence. The ultimate extent of these independences, she still dared not

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