“God save me from it.”

“You just left off loving?”

“Not even that.  I went away.”

“What from?”

“From it all.”

“From the woman in particular?”

“Oh, yes.  Yes.  Yes, that.”

“And you couldn’t go back?”

Aaron shook his head.

“Yet you can give no reasons?”

“Not any reasons that would be any good.  It wasn’t a question of reasons.  It was a question of her and me and what must be.  What makes a child be born out of its mother to the pain and trouble of both of them?  I don’t know.”

“But that is a natural process.”

“So is this—­or nothing.”

“No,” interposed the Major.  “Because birth is a universal process—­ and yours is a specific, almost unique event.”

“Well, unique or not, it so came about.  I didn’t ever leave off loving her—­not as far as I know.  I left her as I shall leave the earth when I die—­because it has to be.”

“Do you know what I think it is, Mr. Sisson?” put in Lady Franks.  “I think you are just in a wicked state of mind:  just that.  Mr. Lilly, too.  And you must be very careful, or some great misfortune will happen to you.”

“It may,” said Aaron.

“And it will, mark my word, it will.”

“You almost wish it might, as a judgment on me,” smiled Aaron.

“Oh, no, indeed.  I should only be too sorry.  But I feel it will, unless you are careful.”

“I’ll be careful, then.”

“Yes, and you can’t be too careful.”

“You make me frightened.”

“I would like to make you very frightened indeed, so that you went back humbly to your wife and family.”

“It would HAVE to be a big fright then, I assure you.”

“Ah, you are really heartless.  It makes me angry.”

She turned angrily aside.

“Well, well!  Well, well!  Life!  Life!  Young men are a new thing to me!” said Sir William, shaking his head.  “Well, well!  What do you say to whiskey and soda, Colonel?”

“Why, delighted, Sir William,” said the Colonel, bouncing up.

“A night-cap, and then we retire,” said Lady Franks.

Aaron sat thinking.  He knew Sir William liked him:  and that Lady Franks didn’t.  One day he might have to seek help from Sir William.  So he had better placate milady.  Wrinkling the fine, half mischievous smile on his face, and trading on his charm, he turned to his hostess.

“You wouldn’t mind, Lady Franks, if I said nasty things about my wife and found a lot of fault with her.  What makes you angry is that I know it is not a bit more her fault than mine, that we come apart.  It can’t be helped.”

“Oh, yes, indeed.  I disapprove of your way of looking at things altogether.  It seems to me altogether cold and unmanly and inhuman.  Thank goodness my experience of a man has been different.”