“Then it was she who got tired of you?  Why did she get tired of you?”

“Why anything?  Why did she fall in love with me?”

“Is it, then, the same thing?”

He judged it necessary to dissemble, and he advanced the theory which he always made use of on these occasions—­that women were more capricious than men, that so far as his experience counted for anything, he had invariably been thrown over.  The object of this theory was two-fold.  It impressed his listener with an idea of his fidelity, which was essential if she were a woman.  It also suggested that he had inspired a large number of caprices, thereby he gratified his vanity and inspired hope in the lady that as a lover he would prove equal to her desire.  It also helped to establish the moral atmosphere in which an intrigue might develop.

“Did you love her very much?”

“Yes, I was crazy about her.  If I hadn’t been, should I have rushed off in my old yacht for a tour round the world?”

He felt the light of romance fall upon him, and this, he thought, was how he ought to appear to her.

Yet he was sincere.  He admired Evelyn, he thought he might like to be her lover, and he regarded their present talk as a necessary subterfuge, the habitual comedy in which we live.  So, when Evelyn asked him if he still loved Georgina, he answered that he hated her, which was only partly true; and when she asked him if he would go back to her if she were to invite him, he said that nothing in the world would induce him to do so, which was wholly untrue, though he would not admit it to himself.  He knew that if Georgina were to hold up her little finger he would leave Evelyn without a second thought, however foolish he might know such conduct to be.

“Why did you not marry her when she was in love with you?”

“You can love a woman very well indeed without wanting to marry her; besides, she is married.  But are you sure we’re going right?...Is this the way to the picture gallery?”

“Oh, the picture gallery, I had forgotten.  We have passed it a long while.”

They turned and went back, and, in the silence, Owen considered if he had not been too abrupt.  His dealings with women had always been conducted with the same honour that characterised his dealings on the turf, but he need not have informed her so early in their acquaintanceship of his vow of celibacy.  While he thought how he might retrieve his slight indiscretion, she struggled in a little crisis of soul.  Owen’s words, tone of voice, manner were explicit; she could not doubt that he hoped to induce her to leave her father, and she felt that she ought not to see him any more.  She must see him, she must go out to walk with him, and her will fluttered like a feather in space.  She remembered with a gasp that he was the only thing between herself and Dulwich, and at the same moment he decided that he could not do better than to suggest to her that her father was sacrificing her to his ambitions.