Page "The Well of Loneliness" Paragraph 9

Stephen begins to dress in masculine clothes made by a tailor rather than a dressmaker.

At twenty-one she falls in love with Angela Crossby, the American wife of a new neighbor.

Angela uses Stephen as an " anodyne against boredom ", allowing her " a few rather schoolgirlish kisses ".

Then Stephen discovers that Angela is having an affair with a man.

Fearing exposure, Angela shows a letter from Stephen to her husband, who sends a copy to Stephen's mother.

Lady Anna denounces Stephen for " presum to use the word love in connection with ... these unnatural cravings of your unbalanced mind and undisciplined body.

" Stephen replies, " As my father loved you, I loved ...

It was good, good, good – I'd have laid down my life a thousand times over for Angela Crossby.

" After the argument, Stephen goes to her father's study and for the first time opens his locked bookcase.

She finds a book by Krafft-Ebing – assumed by critics to be Psychopathia Sexualis, a text about homosexuality and paraphilias – and, reading it, learns that she is an invert.