ladies, they must be got ready for it from the beginning, sheltered,
never really let out into the wild chances of life. She has been.
Bitterly. She's REALLY emancipated. And it's let her out into a sort of
nothingness. She's no longer a woman, and she isn't a man. She ought
to be able to go on her own--like a man. But I can't take her back to
Cambridge. Even for her sake."

His perplexed eyes regarded Benham.

"You won't be happy in Cambridge--alone," said Benham.

"Oh, damnably not! But what can I do? I had at first some idea of coming
to Moscow for good--teaching."

He paused. "Impossible. I'm worth nothing here. I couldn't have kept
her."

"Then what are you going to do, Billy?"

"I don't KNOW what I'm going to do, I tell you. I live for the moment.
To-morrow we are going out into the country."

"I don't understand," said Benham with a gesture of resignation. "It
seems to me that if a man and woman love each other--well, they insist
upon each other. What is to happen to her if you leave her in Moscow?"

"Damnation! Is there any need to ask that?"

"Take her to Cambridge, man. And if Cambridge objects, teach Cambridge
better manners."

Prothero's face was suddenly transfigured with rage.

"I tell you she won't come!" he said.

"Billy!" said Benham, "you should make her!"

"I can't."

"If a man loves a woman he can make her do anything--"

"But I don't love her like that," said Prothero, shrill with anger. "I
tell you I don't love her like that."

Then he lunged into further deeps. "It's the other men," he said, "it's
the things that have been. Don't you understand? Can't you understand?
The memories--she must have memories--they come between us. It's
something deeper than reason. It's in one's spine and under one's nails.
One could do anything, I perceive, for one's very own woman...."

"MAKE her your very own woman, said the exponent of heroic love.

"I shirk deeds, Benham, but you shirk facts. How could any man make her
his very own woman now? You--you don't seem to understand--ANYTHING.
She's nobody's woman--for ever. That--that might-have-been has gone for
ever.... It's nerves--a passion of the nerves. There's a cruelty in life
and-- She's KIND to me. She's so kind to me...."

And then again Prothero was weeping like a vexed child.

15

The end of Prothero's first love affair came to Benham in broken
fragments in letters. When he looked for Anna Alexievna in December--he
never lea