decent woman--and you have proved not one thing against
her--a decent woman will keep him up to the mark and stop him getting
slack. She'll make him responsible and manly, for much as I like Rickie,
I always find him a little effeminate. And, really,"--his voice grew
sharper, for he was irritated by Ansell's conceit, "and, really, you
talk as if you were mixed up in the affair. They pay a civil visit to
your rooms, and you see nothing but dark plots and challenges to war."

"War!" cried Ansell, crashing his fists together. "It's war, then!"

"Oh, what a lot of tommy-rot," said Tilliard. "Can't a man and woman get
engaged? My dear boy--excuse me talking like this--what on earth is it
to do with us?"

"We're his friends, and I hope we always shall be, but we shan't keep
his friendship by fighting. We're bound to fall into the background.
Wife first, friends some way after. You may resent the order, but it is
ordained by nature."

"The point is, not what's ordained by nature or any other fool, but
what's right."

"You are hopelessly unpractical," said Tilliard, turning away. "And let
me remind you that you've already given away your case by acknowledging
that they're happy."

"She is happy because she has conquered; he is happy because he has
at last hung all the world's beauty on to a single peg. He was always
trying to do it. He used to call the peg humanity. Will either of these
happinesses last? His can't. Hers only for a time. I fight this woman
not only because she fights me, but because I foresee the most appalling
catastrophe. She wants Rickie, partly to replace another man whom she
lost two years ago, partly to make something out of him. He is to write.
In time she will get sick of this. He won't get famous. She will only
see how thin he is and how lame. She will long for a jollier husband,
and I don't blame her. And, having made him thoroughly miserable and
degraded, she will bolt--if she can do it like a lady."

Such were the opinions of Stewart Ansell.

IX

Seven letters written in June:--

Cambridge

Dear Rickie,

I would rather write, and you can guess what kind of letter this is
when I say it is a fair copy: I have been making rough drafts all
the morning. When I talk I get angry, and also at times try to be
clever--two reasons why I fail to get attention paid to me. This is a
letter of the prudent sort. If it makes you break off the engagement,
its work is done. You are not a person w