“Val is genuinely religious and a bit of an ascetic.  I have no doubt that his life is now and will continue to be spotless.  But that it was always so is most unlikely.  Army subalterns during the war were given no end of a good time.  And quite right too, it was the least that could be done for us:  and the most, in nine cases out of ten:  personally I had no use for munition workers in mud-coloured overalls, but I still remember with gratitude the nymphs who decorated my week end leaves.”

Isabel shivered:  the hand that he was holding had grown icy cold.

“There, you see!” said Hyde with his saddened cynicism.  “You will have it all out but you can’t stand it when it comes.  You had better have left it to Val:  not but what I’d rather talk to you, but I hate to distress you, and you’re not old enough yet, my darling, to see these trivial things—­yes, trivial to nine-tenths of the world:  it’s only the clergy, and unmarried women, and a small number of hyper-sensitives like Val, who attach an importance to them that they don’t deserve.  But you’re too young to see them in perspective.  Try to do it for my sake.  Try to see me as I am.”

“Well, show me then.”

But what he showed her was not himself but the aspect of himself that he wished her to see—­a very different matter.  “I’m too old for you.  I’m the son of a Jew, and a Houndsditch Jew at that.  But I’m rich—­what’s called rich in my set—­and when I marry I shan’t keep my wife dependent on me.  Ah! don’t misunderstand me—­yours is a rich manysided nature, and you’re too intelligent to underrate the value of money.  It means a wide life and lots of interests, books, pictures, music, travel, mixing with the men and women best worth knowing.  You’re ambitious, my dear, and as my wife you can build yourself up any social position you like.  Farringay’s not as big as Wharton, but on my soul it’s more perfect in its way.  I’ve never seen such panelling in my life, and the gardens are admittedly the most beautiful in Dorsetshire.  There are Sevres services more precious than gold plate, and if you come to that there’s gold plate into the bargain.  Can’t I see you there as chatelaine, entertaining the county!  You’ll wear the sapphires my mother wore; the old man couldn’t have been more happily inspired, they’re the very colour of your eyes.  And there’ll be no price to pay, for since I’m a Jew and a cosmopolitan, and not a country squire, you’ll keep your personal freedom inviolate.  You’ll give what you will, when you will, as you will.  Any other terms are to my mind unthinkable—­a brutalizing of what ought to be the most delicate of things.  Heavens, how I hate a middleclass English marriage!  Ah! but I’m not so accommodating as I sound, for you won’t be a grudging giver; you’re not an ascetic like Val, there’s passion in you though you’ve been trained to repress it, you’ll soon learn what love means as we understand it in the sunny countries. . . .  Isabel, my Isabel, when we get away from these grey English skies you won’t refuse to let me kiss you. . .”