I have said already, will never
hold any one worth holding--longer than they held us. Against every
"shalt not" there must be a "why not" plainly put,--the "why not"
largest and plainest, the law deduced from its purpose. "You and I,
Isabel," I said, "have always been a little disregardful of duty, partly
at least because the idea of duty comes to us so ill-clad. Oh! I know
there's an extravagant insubordinate strain in us, but that wasn't all.
I wish humbugs would leave duty alone. I wish all duty wasn't covered
with slime. That's where the real mischief comes in. Passion can always
contrive to clothe itself in beauty, strips itself splendid. That
carried us. But for all its mean associations there is this duty....

"Don't we come rather late to it?"

"Not so late that it won't be atrociously hard to do."

"It's queer to think of now," said Isabel. "Who could believe we did all
we have done honestly? Well, in a manner honestly. Who could believe we
thought this might be hidden? Who could trace it all step by step from
the time when we found that a certain boldness in our talk was pleasing?
We talked of love.... Master, there's not much for us to do in the way
of Apologia that any one will credit. And yet if it were possible to
tell the very heart of our story....

"Does Margaret really want to go on with you?" she asked--"shield
you--knowing of... THIS?"

"I'm certain. I don't understand--just as I don't understand Shoesmith,
but she does. These people walk on solid ground which is just thin air
to us. They've got something we haven't got. Assurances? I wonder."...

Then it was, or later, we talked of Shoesmith, and what her life might
be with him.

"He's good," she said; "he's kindly. He's everything but magic. He's the
very image of the decent, sober, honourable life. You can't say a thing
against him or I--except that something--something in his imagination,
something in the tone of his voice--fails for me. Why don't I love
him?--he's a better man than you! Why don't you? IS he a better man than
you? He's usage, he's honour, he's the right thing, he's the breed and
the tradition,--a gentleman. You're your erring, incalculable self. I
suppose we women will trust this sort and love your sort to the very end
of time...."

We lay side by side and nibbled at grass stalks as we talked. It seemed
enormously unreasonable to us that two people who had come to the pitch
of easy and confident affection and happiness