“No,” said Waymark, shaking his head and smiling.  “It isn’t as you think.  It is perfectly understood between us that we are to be agreeable company to each other, and absolutely nothing beyond that.  I have no motive for leading you astray in the matter.  However things were, I would tell you frankly.”

There was another silence.

“Do you think there is anything like confidence between your wife and her?” Waymark asked.

“That I hardly know.  When I am present, of course they only talk about ordinary women’s interests, household affairs, and so on.”

“Then you have no means of—­well, of knowing whether she has spoken about me to your wife in any particular way?”

“Nothing of the kind has ever been hinted to me”

“Waymark,” Julian continued, after a pause, “you are a strange fellow.”

“In what respect.”

“Do you mean to tell me honestly that—­that you—­”

“Well?—­you mean to say, that I am not in love with the girl?”

“No, I wasn’t going to say that,” said Julian, with his usual bashfulness, heightened in this case by some feeling which made him pale.  “I meant, do you really believe that she has no kind of regard for you beyond mere friendship?”

“Why?  Have you formed any conclusions of your own on the point?”

“How could I help doing so?”

“And you look on me,” said Waymark, after thinking for a moment, “as an insensible dog, with a treasure thrown at his feet which he is quite incapable of appreciating or making use of?”

“No.  I only feel that your position must be a very difficult one.  But perhaps you had rather not speak of these things?”

“On the contrary.  You are perfectly right, and the position is as difficult as it well could be.”

“You had made your choice, I suppose, before you knew Ida at all?”

“So far from that, I haven’t even made it yet.  I am not at all sure that my chance of ever marrying Maud Enderby is not so utterly remote, that t ought to put aside all thought of it.  In that case—­”

“But this is a strange state of mind,” said Julian, with a forced laugh.  “Is it possible to balance feelings in this way?”

“You, in my position, would have no doubt?”

“I don’t know Miss Enderby,” said Julian, reddening.

Waymark walked up and down the room, with his hands behind his back, his brows bent.  He had never told his friend anything of Ida’s earlier history; but now he felt half-tempted to let him know everything.  To do so, might possibly give him that additional motive to a clear and speedy decision in the difficulties which grew ever more pressing.  Yet was it just to Ida to speak of these things even to one who would certainly not repeat a word?  Once or twice he all but began, yet in the end a variety of motives kept him silent.

“Well,” he exclaimed shortly, “we’ll talk about this another time.  Perhaps I shall have more to tell you.  Don’t be gloomy.  Look, here I am just upon the end of my novel.  If all goes smoothly I shall finish it in a fortnight, and then I will read it to you.”