ed her,
had told him she would see him again soon. "When Gilbert's play is
done," she said, and added, "Tell Gilbert I shall expect him to come and
talk to me after the first act!"

He had been jealous when she said that. "You don't really care for me,"
he had said. "You really love Gilbert!"

"Of course I love Gilbert," she had answered, laughing at him and
patting his cheek, "but I love you, too. I love lots of people! ..."

Then, ashamed of himself, he had left her. It was caddish of him to
speak of Gilbert to her, for Gilbert was his friend and her lover. If
one were to try and take a friend's mistress from him, one should at
least be silent about it. But how could he help these outbursts of
jealousy! He cared for Gilbert far more than he cared for any man ...
but he could not prevent himself from raging at the thought that Gilbert
had but to hold out his arms and Cecily would run to be clasped in them.
"I'm a makeshift," he said to himself. "That's all!"

But even if he were only a makeshift, that was better than being shut
away from her love altogether. "I daresay," he thought, "she's as fond
of me as she is of any one!" and he wondered whether she really loved
Gilbert. It was difficult for him to believe that she could yield so
easily to him and love Gilbert deeply, and he soothed his conscience by
telling himself that Cecily was one of those women who are in love with
love, ready to accept kisses from any ardent youth who offers them to
her. He remembered his contribution to the discussion on women and the
way in which he had insisted on infinite variety of experiences. Cecily
was, as a woman, what he had wished to be as a man. We had to recognise
the differences of nature, he had said, but somehow he did not greatly
care to see his principle put into practice by Cecily. There was
something very fine and dashing and Byronic and adventurous in a man
with a spacious spirit, but after all, women were women, and one did not
like to think of adventuring women. He wanted to have Cecily to himself
... he did not wish to share her with Gilbert or with Jimphy or with any
one, and it hardly seemed decent that Cecily should wish to spread her
affections over three men. "And there may be others, too!" All this talk
about sex-equality had an equitable sound ... his intellect agreed that
if men were to have amorous adventures, then women should have them too;
if men were to be unfaithful without reproach, then women should