“That’s a comforting doctrine—­for the poor.”

“It’s like this.  Sabina is a very dear girl, and I loved her tremendously, and if she’d gone on being the same afterwards, I should have married her.  But she changed, and I saw that we could never be really happy together as man and wife.  There are things in her that would have ruined my temper, and there are things in me she would have got to hate more and more.  As a matter of brutal fact, Arthur, she got to dislike me long before things came to a climax.  She had to hide it, because, from her standpoint and her silly mother’s, marriage is the only sort of salvation.  Whereas for us it would have been damnation.  It’s very simple; she’s got to think as I think and then she’ll be all right.”

“You can’t make people think your way, if they prefer to think their own.”

“It’s merely the line of least resistance and what will pay her best.  I want you to grasp the fact that she had ceased to like me before there was any reason why she should cease to like me.  I’ll swear she had.  My first thought and intention, when I heard what had happened, was to marry her right away.  And what changed my feeling about it, and showed me devilish clear it would be a mistake, was Sabina herself.  We needn’t go over that.  But I’m not going to marry her now under any circumstances whatever, while recognising very clearly my duty to her and the child.  And though you may say it’s humbug, I’m thinking quite as much for her as myself when I say this.”

“I don’t presume to judge.  You’re not a humbug—­no good sportsman is in my experience.  If you do everything right for the child, I suppose the world has no reason to criticise.”

“As long as I’m right with myself, I don’t care one button what the world says, Arthur.  There’s nothing quicker opens your eyes, or helps you to take larger views, than independence.”

“I see that.”

“All the same, it’s a steadying thing if you’re honest and have got brains in your head.  People thought I was a shallow, easy, good-natured and good-for-nothing fool six months ago.  Well, they thought wrong.  But don’t think I’m pleased with myself, or any nonsense of that sort.  Only a fool is pleased with himself.  I’ve wasted my life till now, because I had no ambition.  Now I’m beginning it and trying to get things into their proper perspective.  When I had no responsibilities, I was irresponsible.  Now they’ve come, I’m stringing myself up to meet them.”

“Life’s given you your chance.”

“Exactly; and I hope to show I can take it.  But I’m not going to start by making an ass of myself to please a few old women.”

“Where shall you live?”

“Nowhere in particular for the minute.  I shall roam and see all that’s being done in my business and take John Best with me for a while.  Then it depends.  Perhaps, if things go as I expect about machinery, I shall ask you for a corner again in the autumn.”