Isabel or let her see that aspect
of our case. How could I? The time for that had gone....

Then in new shapes and relations came trouble. Distressful elements
crept in by reason of our unavoidable furtiveness; we ignored them,
hid them from each other, and attempted to hide them from ourselves.
Successful love is a thing of abounding pride, and we had to be secret.
It was delightful at first to be secret, a whispering, warm conspiracy;
then presently it became irksome and a little shameful. Her essential
frankness of soul was all against the masks and falsehoods that many
women would have enjoyed. Together in our secrecy we relaxed, then in
the presence of other people again it was tiresome to have to watch
for the careless, too easy phrase, to snatch back one's hand from the
limitless betrayal of a light, familiar touch.

Love becomes a poor thing, at best a poor beautiful thing, if it
develops no continuing and habitual intimacy. We were always meeting,
and most gloriously loving and beginning--and then we had to snatch at
remorseless ticking watches, hurry to catch trains, and go back to this
or that. That is all very well for the intrigues of idle people perhaps,
but not for an intense personal relationship. It is like lighting a
candle for the sake of lighting it, over and over again, and each time
blowing it out. That, no doubt, must be very amusing to children playing
with the matches, but not to people who love warm light, and want it in
order to do fine and honourable things together. We had achieved--I
give the ugly phrase that expresses the increasing discolouration in my
mind--"illicit intercourse." To end at that, we now perceived, wasn't in
our style. But where were we to end?...

Perhaps we might at this stage have given it up. I think if we could
have seen ahead and around us we might have done so. But the glow of our
cell blinded us.... I wonder what might have happened if at that time we
had given it up.... We propounded it, we met again in secret to discuss
it, and our overpowering passion for one another reduced that meeting to
absurdity....

Presently the idea of children crept between us. It came in from all our
conceptions of life and public service; it was, we found, in the quality
of our minds that physical love without children is a little weak,
timorous, more than a little shameful. With imaginative people there
very speedily comes a time when that realisation is inevitable. We
hadn't th