imself unreasonably but efficiently
frustrated. He was trapped by the illogicality of human life. The
obstacles in the way of his desire seemed to him purely artificial, and
yet he could see no way of removing them. Mary's words, the tone of her
voice even, angered him, for she would not help him. She was part of the
insanely jumbled muddle of a world which impedes the sensible life. He
would have liked to slam the door or break the hind legs of a chair,
for the obstacles had taken some such curiously substantial shape in his
mind.

"I doubt that one human being ever understands another," he said,
stopping in his march and confronting Mary at a distance of a few feet.

"Such damned liars as we all are, how can we? But we can try. If you
don't want to marry me, don't; but the position you take up about love,
and not seeing each other--isn't that mere sentimentality? You think
I've behaved very badly," he continued, as she did not speak. "Of course
I behave badly; but you can't judge people by what they do. You can't
go through life measuring right and wrong with a foot-rule. That's what
you're always doing, Mary; that's what you're doing now."

She saw herself in the Suffrage Office, delivering judgment, meting
out right and wrong, and there seemed to her to be some justice in the
charge, although it did not affect her main position.

"I'm not angry with you," she said slowly. "I will go on seeing you, as
I said I would."

It was true that she had promised that much already, and it was
difficult for him to say what more it was that he wanted--some intimacy,
some help against the ghost of Katharine, perhaps, something that he
knew he had no right to ask; and yet, as he sank into his chair and
looked once more at the dying fire it seemed to him that he had been
defeated, not so much by Mary as by life itself. He felt himself thrown
back to the beginning of life again, where everything has yet to be won;
but in extreme youth one has an ignorant hope. He was no longer certain
that he would triumph.

CHAPTER XX

Happily for Mary Datchet she returned to the office to find that by some
obscure Parliamentary maneuver the vote had once more slipped beyond the
attainment of women. Mrs. Seal was in a condition bordering upon frenzy.
The duplicity of Ministers, the treachery of mankind, the insult to
womanhood, the setback to civilization, the ruin of her life's work, the
feelings of her father's daughter--all these topi