“And do you think she isn’t in it?”

“No.  Not anywhere near it.  But—­it’s a big but—­”

“I don’t care how big it is.  Don’t bother me with it.”

“Bother you?  Why, it’s a beautiful but.  As I said, she isn’t in love with you; but she may be any minute.  It’s just touch and go with her.  It depends on you.”

“Heavens, what am I to do?  I’ve done everything.”

“Yes, you have, but she hasn’t.  She’s done nothing.  She doesn’t know how to.  You’ve got to show her.”

He shook his head hopelessly.  “You’re beyond me.  I don’t understand.  There isn’t anything for me to do.  How am I to show her?”

“I mean show her what there is in it.  What it means.  What it’s going to be for her as well as you.  Just go at it hard, harder than you did before you married her.”

“I see, I’ve got to make love to her all over again.”

“Exactly.  All over again from the very beginning.”

“I say!” He took it in, her idea, in all the width and splendour of its simplicity.  “And do it differently?”

“Oh, very differently.”

“I don’t quite see where the difference is to come in.  What did I do before that was so wrong?”

“Nothing.  That’s just the worst of it.  It was all too right.  Ever so much too right.  Don’t you see?  It’s what we’ve been talking about.  You made her in love with your goodness.  And she was in love with it, not because it was your goodness, but because it was her own.  That’s why she wanted to marry it.  She couldn’t be in love with it for any other reason, because she’s an egoist.”

“No.  There you’re quite wrong.  That’s what she isn’t.”

“Oh, you are in love with her.  Of course she’s an egoist.  All the nicest women are.  I’m an egoist myself.  Do you love me less for it?”

“I don’t love you less for anything.”

“Well—­unless you can make Anne jealous of me—­and you can’t—­you’ve got to love me less, now, dear boy.  That’s where I come in—­to be kept out of it.”

She had led him breathless on her giddy round; she plunged him back into bewilderment.  He hadn’t a notion where she was taking him to, where they would come out; but there was a desperate delight in the impetuous journey, the wind of her sudden flight lifted him and carried him on.  He had always trusted the marvellous inspirations of her heart.  She had failed him once; but now he could not deny that she had given him lights, and he looked for a stupendous illumination at the end of the way.

“Out of it!” he exclaimed.  “Why, where should I have been without you?  You were the beginning of it.”

“I was indeed.  You’ve got to take care I’m not the end of it, that’s all.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“I mean what I say.  You don’t want Anne to be in love with you for my sake, do you?”

“N—­no.  I don’t know that I do exactly.  At least I should prefer that she was in love with me for my own.”