It was this assurance that made it possible for him to say what he had been thinking of saying all the time that he talked to Anne about his bacteriology.  Bacteriology was a screen behind which Eliot, uncertain of Anne’s feelings, sheltered himself against irrevocable disaster.  He meant to ask Anne to marry him, but he kept putting it off because, so long as he didn’t know for certain that she wouldn’t have him, he was at liberty to think she would.  He would not be taking her from Jerrold.  Jerrold, inconceivable ass, didn’t want her.  Eliot had made sure of that months ago, the night before Jerrold sailed.  He had simply put it to him:  what did he mean to do about Anne Severn?  And Jerrold had made it very plain that his chief object in going to India was to get away from Anne Severn and Everything.  Eliot knew Jerrold too well to suspect his sincerity, so he considered that the way was now honorably open to him.

His only uncertainty was Anne herself.  He had meant to give her a year to forget Jerrold in, if she was ever going to forget him; though in moments of deeper insight he realized that Anne was not likely to forget, nor to marry anybody else as long as she remembered.

Yet, Eliot reasoned, women did marry, even remembering.  They married and were happy.  You saw it every day.  He was content to take Anne on her own terms, at any cost, at any risk.  He had never been afraid of risks, and once he had faced the chance of her refusal all other dangers were insignificant.

A year was a long time, and Eliot had to consider the probability of his going out to Central Africa with Sir Martin Crozier to investigate sleeping sickness.  He wanted the thing settled one way or another before he went.

He put it off again till the next week-end.  And in the meanwhile Sir Martin Crozier had seen him.  He was starting in the spring and Eliot was to go with him.

It was on Sunday evening that he spoke to Anne, sitting with her under the beeches at the top of the field where she and Jerrold had sat together.  Eliot had chosen his place badly.

“I wouldn’t bother you so soon if I wasn’t going away, but I simply must—­must know—­”

“Must know what?”

“Whether you care for me at all.  Not much, of course, but just enough not to hate marrying me.”

Anne turned her face full on him and looked at him with her innocent, candid eyes.  And all she said was, “You do know about Jerrold, don’t you?”

“Oh God, yes.  I know all about him.”

“He’s why I can’t.”

“I tell you, I know all about Jerrold.  He isn’t a good enough reason.”

“Good enough for me.”

“Not unless—­” But he couldn’t say it.

“Not unless he cares for me.  That’s why you’re asking me, then, because you know he doesn’t.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be much good if I knew he did.”

“Eliot, it’s awful of me to talk about it, as if he’d said he did.  He never said a word.  He never will.”