been a spectator,
intervening sometimes in the sudden tragedies and comedies, but never
intervening except as very essentially a spectator. He thought, as he
sat opposite to Daisy with her white dress and candid roguery, that it
would be amusing to become a rogue himself. There would be no strain in
living with Daisy. Love in the way that he had loved Lily would be a
joke to her. Why should not he take her for what she was--shrewd,
mirthful, kind, honest, the natural light of love? He would do her no
wrong by accepting her as such. She was immemorial in the scheme of the
universe.

Michael was on the point of offering to Daisy his alliance, when he
remembered what Sylvia had said about men and, though he knew that Daisy
could not possibly think in that way about men, he had no courage to
plunge with her into deeper labyrinths not yet explored. He thought of
the contempt with which Sylvia would hail him, were they in this
nightmare of London to meet in such circumstances. A few weeks
ago--yesterday, indeed--he might have joined himself to Daisy under the
pretext of helping her and improving her. Now he must help himself: he
must aim at perfecting himself. Experiments, when at any moment passion
might enter, were too dangerous.

"No, I won't come home with you, dear Daisy," he said, taking her hand
over the puddly table. "You know, you didn't kiss me that night in
Quondam Street because you thought I might one day come home with you,
did you?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"What's the good of asking me why I kissed you?" she said, embarrassed
and almost made angry by his reminder. "Perhaps I was twopence on the
can. I can get very loving on a quartern of gin, I can. Oh, well, if you
aren't coming home, you aren't, and I must get along. Sitting talking to
you isn't paying my rent, is it?"

He longed to offer her money, but he could not, because it was seeming
to him now indissolubly linked with hiring. However genuinely it was a
token of exchange, money was eluding his capacity for idealization, and
he was at a loss to find a symbol service.

"Is there nothing I can do for you?"

"Yes, you can give me two quid in case I don't get off to-night."

He offered them to her eagerly.

"Go on, you silly thing," she said, pushing the money away. "As if I
meant it."

"If you didn't, I did," said Michael.

"Oh, all right," she replied, with a wink, putting the money in her
purse. "Well, chin-chin, Clive, don't be so lo