. 'The relations of the sexes should
be as free as friendship,' he had taught. 'If a man and a woman love
each other, it is nobody's business but their own. Neither the Law nor
Society can, with any show of justice, interfere. That they do
interfere, is a survival of feudalism, a survival of the system under
which the individual, the subject, had no liberty, no rights. If a man
and a woman love each other, they should be as free to determine for
themselves the character, extent, and duration of their intercourse,
as two friends should be. If they wish to live together under the same
roof, let them. If they wish to retain their separate domiciles, let
them. If they wish to cleave to each other till death severs them--if
they wish to part on the morrow of their union--let them, by heaven.
But the couple who go before a priest or a magistrate, and bind
themselves in ceremonial marriage, are serving to perpetuate tyranny,
are insulting the dignity of human nature.' Such was the gospel which
Nina had absorbed (don't, for goodness' sake, imagine that I approve
of it because I cite it), and which she professed in entire good
faith. We felt that the coming man would misapprehend both it and
her--though he would not hesitate to make a convenience of it. Ugh,
the cynic!

We formed ourselves round her in a ring of fire, hoping to frighten
the beast away. But we were miserably, fiercely, anxious, suspicious,
jealous. We were jealous of everything in the shape of a man that came
into any sort of contact with her: of the men who passed her in the
street or rode with her in the omnibus; of the little _employes de
commerce_ to whom she gave English lessons; of everybody. I fancy we
were always more or less uneasy in our minds when she was out of our
sight. Who could tell what might be happening? With those lips of
hers, those eyes of hers--oh, we knew how she could love: Chalks had
said it. Who could tell what might already have happened? Who could
tell that the coming man had not already come? She was entirely
capable of concealing him from us. Sometimes, in the evening, she
would seem absent, preoccupied. How could we be sure that she wasn't
thinking of him? Savouring anew the hours she had passed with him that
very day? Or dreaming of those she had promised him for to-morrow? If
she took leave of us--might he not be waiting to join her round the
corner? If she spent an evening away from us....

And she--she only laughed; laughed a