I said to him: 

“I will marry you if you get some serious occupation, Peter, but I won’t marry an idle man; you think of nothing but yourself and me.”

Peter:  “What in the name of goodness would you have me think of? 
Geography?”

Margot:  “You know exactly what I mean.  Your power lies in love-making, not in loving; you don’t love any one but yourself.”

At this, Peter moved away from me as if I had struck him and said in a low tense voice: 

“I am glad I did not say that.  I would not care to have said such a cat-cruel thing; but I pity the man who marries you!  He will think—­as I did—­that you are impulsively, throbbingly warm and kind and gentle; and he will find that he has married a governess and a prig; and a woman whose fire—­of which she boasts so much—­ blasts his soul.”

I listened to a Peter I had never heard before, His face frightened me.  It indicated suffering.  I put my head against his and said: 

“How can I make an honest man of you, my dearest?”

I was getting quite clever about people, as the Mrs. Bo episode had taught me a lot.

A short time after this conversation, I observed a dark, good-looking woman pursuing Peter Flower at every ball and party.  He told me when I teased him that she failed to arrest his attention and that, for the first time in my life, I flattered him by my jealousy.  I persisted and said that I did not know if it was jealousy but that I was convinced she was a bad friend for him.

Peter:  “I’ve always noticed you think things bad when they don’t suit you, but why should I give up my life to you?  What do you give me in return?  I’m the laughing-stock of London!  But, if it is any satisfaction to you, I will tell you I don’t care for the black lady, as you call her, and I never see her except at parties.”

I knew Peter as well as a cat knows its way in the dark and I felt the truth of his remark:  what did I give him?  But I was not in a humour to argue.

The lady often asked me to go and see her, but I shrank from it and had never been inside her house.

One day I told Peter I would meet him at the Soane Collection in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.  To my surprise he said he had engaged himself to see his sister, who had been ill, and pointed out with a laugh that my governessing was taking root.  He added: 

“I don’t mind giving it up if you can spend the whole afternoon with me.”

I told him I would not have him give up going to see his sister for the world.

Finding myself at a loose end, I thought I would pay a visit to the black lady, as it was unworthy of me to have such a prejudice against some one whom I did not know.  It was a hot London day; pale colours, thin stuffs, naked throats and large hats were strewn about the parks and streets.