ame; but this
morning I'm the hour before sunrise. No; I'm the outpost star, the one
the comets turn--the one that peers off into nowhere.

"Perhaps if Ambo came to me now I should flame again; or perhaps I
should only make believe for his sake. Is wanting to make believe for
another's sake enough? Why not? I've no patience with lovers who are
always rhythm and flame. Even if they exist--outside of _maisons de
sante_--what good are they? Poets can rave about them, I suppose--that's
something; but imagine coming to the end of life and finding that one
had merely furnished good copy for Swinburne! No, thank you, Mrs.
Hephaestus--you beautiful, shameless humbug! I prefer Apollo's lonely
magic to yours. I'd rather be Swinburne than Iseult. If there's any
singing left to be done I shall try to do part of it myself.

"There, you see; already you've forgotten Ambo completely--now you'll
have to turn back and hunt for him. And if he's really working on
_Aristocracy and Art_ this morning, as he should be, then he has almost
certainly forgotten you. Oh, dear! but he isn't--and he hasn't! Here he
comes----"

* * * * *

Yes, I came; but not to ask for assurances of love. Man is so naively
egotist, it takes a good deal to convince him, once the idea has been
accepted, that he is not the object of an unalterable devotion. Frankly,
I took it for granted now that Susan loved me, and would continue to
love me till her dying hour.

What I really came to say to her, under the calming and strengthening
influence of two or three rather well-written pages, was that our
situation had definitely become untenable. I am an emancipated talker,
but I am not an emancipated man; the distinction is important; the hold
of mere custom upon me is strong. I could not see myself asking Susan to
defy the world with me; or if I could just see it for my own sake, I
certainly couldn't for hers. Nor could I see it for Gertrude's.
Gertrude, after all, was my wife; and though she chose to feel I had
driven her from my society, I knew that she did not feel willing to seek
divorce for herself or to grant the freedom of it to me. On this point
her convictions, having a religious sanction, were permanent. Gentle
manners, then, if nothing higher, forbade me to seize the freedom she
denied me. Having persuaded Gertrude, in good faith, to enter into an
unconditional contract with me for life, I could no more bring myself to
break it