"He wants me to be engaged soon. Then, he says, he can go round

fighting these rumours, defending us both-and force a quarrel on

the Baileys."

"I don't understand him," I said, and added, "I don't understand

you."

I was staring at her face. It seemed white and set in the dimness.

"Do you really mean this, Isabel?" I asked.

"What else is there to do, my dear?-what else is there to do at

all? I've been thinking day and night. You can't go away with me.

You can't smash yourself suddenly in the sight of all men. I'd

rather die than that should happen. Look what you are becoming in

the country! Look at all you've built up!-me helping. I wouldn't

let you do it if you could. I wouldn't let you-if it were only for

Margaret's sake. THIS… closes the scandal, closes everything."

"It closes all our life together," I cried.

She was silent.

"It never ought to have begun," I said.

She winced. Then abruptly she was on her knees before me, with her

hands upon my shoulder and her eyes meeting mine.

"My dear," she said very earnestly, "don't misunderstand me! Don't

thinkI'm retreating from the things we've done! Our love is the

best thing I could ever have had from life. Nothing can ever equal

it; nothing could ever equal the beauty and delight you and I have

had together. Never! You have loved me; you do love me…

No one could ever know how to love you as I have loved you; no one

could ever love me as you have loved me, my king. And it's just

because it's been so splendid, dear; it's just because I'd die

rather than have a tithe of all this wiped out of my life again-for

it's made me, it's all I am-dear, it's years since I began loving

you-it's just because of its goodness that I want not to end in

wreckage now, not to end in the smashing up of all the big things I

understand in you and love in you…

"What is there for us if we keep on and go away?" she went on. "All

the big interests in our lives will vanish-everything. We shall

become specialised people-people overshadowed by a situation. We

shall be an elopement, a romance-all our breadth and meaning gone!

People will always think of it first when they think of us; all our

work and aims will be warped by it and subordinated to it. Is it

good enough, dear? Just to specialise… I think of you.

We've got a case, a passionate case, the best of cases, but do we

want to spend all our lives defending it and justifying it? And

there's that other life. I know now you care for Margaret-you care

more than you think you do. You have said fine things of her. I've

watched you about her. Little things have dropped from you. She's

given her life for you; she's nothing without you. You feel that to

your marrow all the time you are thinking about these things. Oh,

I'm not jealous, dear. I love you for loving her. I love you in

relation to her. But there it is, an added weight against us,

another thing worth saving."

Presently, I remember, she sat back on her heels and looked up into

my face. "We've done wrong-and parting's paying. It's time to

pay. We needn't have paid, if we'd kept to the track… You

and I, Master, we've got to be men."

"Yes," I said; "we've got to be men."

I was driven to tell Margaret about our situation by my intolerable

dread that otherwise the thing might come to her through some stupid

and clumsy informant. She might even meet Altiora, and have it from

her.

I can still recall the feeling of sitting at my desk that night in

that large study of mine in Radnor Square, waiting for Margaret to

come home. It was oddly like the feeling of a dentist's reception-

room; only it was for me to do the dentistry with clumsy, cruel

hands. I had left the door open so that she would come in to me.

I heard her silken rustle on the stairs at last, and then she was in

the doorway. "May I come in?" she said.

"Do," I said, and turned round to her.

"Working?" she said.

"Hard," I answered. "Where have YOU been?"

"At the Vallerys'. Mr. Evesham was talking about you. They were

all talking. I don't think everybody knew who I was. Just Mrs.

Mumble I'd been to them. Lord Wardenham doesn't like you."

"He doesn't."

"But they all feel you're rather big, anyhow. Then I went on to

Park Lane to hear a new pianist and some other music at Eva's."

"Yes."

"Then I looked in at the Brabants' for some midnight tea before I

came on here. They'd got some writers-and Grant was there."

"You HAVE been flying round…"

There was a little pause between us.

I looked at her pretty, unsuspecting face, and at the slender grace

of her golden-robed body. What gulfs there were between us!

"You've been amused," I said.

"It's been amusing. You've been at the House?"

"The Medical Education Bill kept me."…

After all, why should I tell her? She'd got to a way of living that

fulfilled her requirements. Perhaps she'd never hear. But all that