s it not lucky they left
when they did? Suppose you had arrived, in that state, dearest man, and
burst into a room full of people? What would they have thought? Where
should I have looked?'

'Angel!' he cried. 'I'm so sorry. I forgot it was your evening. I must
have forgotten. I forgot everything, except that I was bound to see you
at once, instantly, with all speed.'

Poor boy! He was like a bird fluttering in my hand. Millions of women
must have so pictured to themselves the men who loved them, and whom
they loved.

'But still, you _were_ rather late, you know,' I smiled.

'Do not ask me why,' he begged, with an expression of deep pain on his
face. 'I have had a scene with Mary. It would humiliate me to tell
you--to tell even you--what passed between us. But it is over. Our
relations in the future can never, in any case, be more than formal.'

A spasm of fierce jealousy shot through me--jealousy of Mary, my friend
Mary, who knew him with such profound intimacy that they could go
through a scene together which was 'humiliating.' I saw that my own
intimacy with him was still crude with the crudity of newness, and that
only years could mellow it. Mary, the good, sentimental Mary, had wasted
the years of their marriage--had never understood the value of the
treasure in her keeping. Why had they always been sad in their house?
What was the origin of that resigned and even cheerful gloom which had
pervaded their domestic life, and which I had remarked on my first visit
to Bloomsbury Square? Were these, too, mysteries that I must not ask my
lover to reveal? Resentment filled me. I came near to hating Mary, not
because she had made him unhappy--oh no!--but because she had had the
priority in his regard, and because there was nothing about him, however
secret and recondite, that I could be absolutely sure of the sole
knowledge of. She had been in the depths with him. I desired fervently
that I also might descend with him, and even deeper. Oh, that I might
have the joy and privilege of humiliation with him!

'I shall ask you nothing, dearest,' I murmured.

I had risen from my seat and gone to him, and was lightly touching his
hair with my fingers. He did not move, but sat staring into the fire.
Somehow, I adored him because he made no response to the fondling of
my hand. His strange acceptance of the caress as a matter of course
gave me the illusion that I was his wife, and that the years had
mellowed our intimacy.

'