She always trying to do little things for me and I
trying to think out little jokes for her to try and cheer her up. Give
you another example. Just when I had brought her the stuff for my hat.
Met me with, Had I lost anything? Made a mystery of it. Said I was to
guess. Guessed at last that it must be my cigarette case. It was. She'd
found it lying about and took me to show where she'd put it for
safety--in the back of the clock in my room. Said I was always to look
there for any little valuables I might miss, and wanted me to know how
she liked to be careful of my things like that. Fussing over me, d'you
see? Trying to make it seem we were living normal, ordinary lives.

"'That's the sort of life we lead together, Hapgood--together; but the
life I'm caught up in, the things that are happening with me, that I'm
right in the middle of, that I felt I had to get away from for a
bit--astounding, Hapgood, astounding, amazing....'

"I'm trying to give you exactly his own words, old man. I want you to
get this business just exactly as I got it. Old Sabre turned to me with
that--with that 'astounding, amazing'--turned and faced me and said:

"'Hapgood, I'm finding out the most extraordinary things about this life
as we've made it and as we live it. Hapgood, if I kept forty women in
different parts of London and made no secret of it, nothing would be
said. People would know I was rather a shameless lot, my little ways
would be an open secret, but nothing would be said. I should be received
everywhere. But I'm thought to have brought one woman into my house and
I'm banned. I'm unspeakable. Forty, flagrantly, outside, and I'm still
a received member of society. People are sorry for my wife, or pretend
to be, but I'm still all right, a bit of a rake, you know, but a decent
enough chap. But I take pity on one poor girl because she clings to her
motherhood although she's unmarried, and I'm beyond the pale. I'm
unspeakable. Amazing. Do you say it's not absolutely astounding?

"'Hapgood, look here. It's this. This is what I've found. You can do the
shocking things, and it can be known you do the shocking things. But you
mustn't be seen doing them. You can beat your wife, and it can be known
among your friends that you beat your wife. But you mustn't be seen
beating her. You mustn't beat her in the street or in your neighbour's
garden. You can drink, and it can be known you drink; but you mustn't be
seen drunk.

"'Do you see, Hapgood