“Oh, that’s another matter,” put in Argyle.  “Lilly is happily married and on the shelf.  With such a fine woman as Tanny I should think so—­ RATHER!  But his is an exceptional nature, and an exceptional case.  As for me, I made a hell of my marriage, and I swear it nearly sent me to hell.  But I didn’t forswear love, when I forswore marriage and woman.  Not by ANY means.”

“Are you not seeking any more, Lilly?” asked the Marchese.  “Do you seek nothing?”

“We married men who haven’t left our wives, are we supposed to seek anything?” said Lilly.  “Aren’t we perfectly satisfied and in bliss with the wonderful women who honour us as wives?”

“Ah, yes, yes!” said the Marchese.  “But now we are not speaking to the world.  Now we try to speak of that which we have in our centre of our hearts.”

“And what have we there?” said Lilly.

“Well—­shall I say?  We have unrest.  We have another need.  We have something that hurts and eats us, yes, eats us inside.  Do I speak the truth?”

“Yes.  But what is the something?”

“I don’t know.  I don’t know.  But it is something in love, I think.  It is love itself which gnaws us inside, like a cancer,” said the Italian.

“But why should it?  Is that the nature of love?” said Lilly.

“I don’t know.  Truly.  I don’t know.—­But perhaps it is in the nature of love—­I don’t know.—­But I tell you, I love my, wife—­she is very dear to me.  I admire her, I trust her, I believe her.  She is to me much more than any woman, more even than my mother.—­And so, I am very happy.  I am very happy, she is very happy, in our love and our marriage.—­But wait.  Nothing has changed—­the love has not changed:  it is the same.—­And yet we are NOT happy.  No, we are not happy.  I know she is not happy, I know I am not—­”

“Why should you be?” said Lilly.

“Yes—­and it is not even happiness,” said the Marchese, screwing up his face in a painful effort of confession.  “It is not even happiness.  No, I do not ask to be happy.  Why should I?  It is childish—­but there is for both of us, I know it, something which bites us, which eats us within, and drives us, drives us, somewhere, we don’t know where.  But it drives us, and eats away the life—­and yet we love each other, and we must not separate—­Do you know what I mean?  Do you understand me at all in what I say?  I speak what is true.”

“Yes, I understand.  I’m in the same dilemma myself.—­But what I want to hear, is WHY you think it is so.  Why is it?”

“Shall I say what I think?  Yes?  And you can tell me if it is foolish to you.—­Shall I tell you?  Well.  Because a woman, she now first wants the man, and he must go to her because he is wanted.  Do you understand?—­You know—­supposing I go to a woman—­supposing she is my wife—­and I go to her, yes, with my blood all ready, because it is I who want.  Then she puts me off.  Then she says, not now,