ve I've ever had. Other women I'd be mad about.
I'd go for them whatever happened and got them somehow, and I wouldn't
care a bit whether they were happy or no. But I feel about you almost
as though you were a man--not sensually at all, but that safe steady
security that you feel for a man sometimes ... You're so restful to be
with. I feel now as though you were the one person in the world who
could turn me into a decent human being. I feel as though we were just
meant to move along together; but then some other woman would come like
a fire and off I'd go ... Then I'd hate myself worse than ever and be
really finished."

Maggie looked at him.

"You don't love me then, Martin?" she asked.

"Yes I do," he answered suddenly, "I keep telling myself that I don't,
but I know that I do. Only it's different. It's as though I were loving
myself, the better part of myself. Not something new and wildly
exciting, but something old that I had known always and that had always
been with me. If I went away now. Maggie, I know I'd come back one
day--perhaps years afterwards--but I know I'd come back. It's like that
religious part of me, like my legs and my arms. Oh! it's not of my own
comfort I'm doubting, but it's you! ... I don't want to hurt you,
Maggie darling, just as I've hurt every one I loved--"

"I'll come with you, Martin," said Maggie, "as long as you want me, and
if you don't want me, later you will again and I'll be waiting for you."

He put his arm round her. She crept up close to him, nestled into his
coat and put her hand up to his cheek. He bent down his head and they
kissed.

After that there could be no more argument. What had he not intended to
press upon her? With what force arid power had he not planned to
persuade her? How he would tell her that he did not love her, that he
would not be faithful to her, that he would treat her cruelly. Now it
was all gone. With a gesture of almost ironic abandonment he flung away
his scruples. It was always so; life was stronger than he. He had
tried, in this at least, to behave like a decent man. But life did not
want him to be decent ...

And how he needed that rest that she gave him! As he felt her close up
against him, folded into him with that utterly naif and childish trust
that had allured and charmed him on the very first occasion, he felt
nothing but a sweet and blessed rest. He would not think of the future.
He would not ... HE WOULD NOT. And perhaps all would be