"To go on with our lives. I have money, thank goodness. I must have a little house--it won't be rich and luxurious like yours--just a little corner where I can put my things, and feel at home. I must make a sacrifice to convention and have a sheep dog, too, I suppose--some lonely woman like myself, who will be thankful for a home. She can look after the servants, and the cleaning, and understand from the first that she leaves _me_ alone. Then I shall find some work. I have an idea working out in my head which I hope will bring interest and occupation. And Piers shall come to see me. We shall have a place where we can meet in peace and comfort." "Vanna, you won't have peace--it's impossible. Oh, I know it's hard that your life should be spoiled, terribly, terribly hard; but remember what the doctor said--that you had no right to spoil the man's life also. When you repeated that to me that afternoon you said there was no fighting against it. If you hold Piers to you now, you will steal his chance of wife and home and children." "Ah, there they are again--those children!" Vanna's lip curled in bitter passion. "Those visionary children who are for ever cropping up to block the way. No legal form can make a wife and home. I am more to Piers than any other woman, despite all my limitations; his home is where I am. Why should I be sacrificed, a live woman, with all my powers strong within me, for the sake of problematic infants who may never arrive? And if they did, is it all joy to be a father? Are you sure that the joy equals the pain? Your father was broken-hearted that day when you left him with a smile. You did not trouble about him; why should I give up everything for the sake of possible children?" There was silence for several moments; then Jean spoke: "Vanna, you talk as if I did not _want_ you to be happy. Ask Robert! He'll tell you how often I have spoken about you; how I've cried in the midst of my own happiness to think you could never have the same. But this! Oh, it's a mistake, dear; it's a mistake; it will land you in worse trouble. Piers will never be content; you won't be content yourself; it won't be happiness, but a long, long fret." "Other people--married people, happy married people--look back and call the years of their engagement the happiest time of their lives. I've heard them. You've heard them yourself." "Yes. But why? They lived in the future, building castles, the castles in which they were to live. If you could have heard them talking when they were alone, you would have found that it was almost always about the future--When shall we be married? Where shall we go for our honeymoon? Where shall we live? They imagined it all sunshine, all joy; and when the reality came, and its shadows, and ups and downs, they looked back, and realised how happy and unburdened they had been. But, Vanna dear, if you take away the future--if there is no looking forward--a dread, instead of a hope--"