FORE:Keeling listened to this with a mixture of pity and grim amusement. He felt sure that his poor Alice was in love with the man, and was sorry for Alice in that regard, but what grimly amused him was the utter impotence of Alice to keep her condition to herself. He was puzzled also, for all this spring Alice seemed to have remained as much in love with him as ever, but not to have got either worse or better. Silverdale filled her with some frantic and wholly maidenly excitement. It was like the love of some antique spinster for her lap-dog, intense and deplorable and sexless. He could even joke in a discreet manner with poor Alice about it, and gratify her by so doing.
