"No. You and Anne. It's Anne I'm talking about. I suppose you can make a mess of your own life if you like. You've no business to make a mess of hers." "My God! as if I didn't know it. What the devil am I to do?" "Leave her alone, Jerrold, if you can't have her." "Leave her alone? I _am_ leaving her alone. I've got to leave her alone, if we both die of it." "She ought to go away," Eliot said. "She shan't go away unless I go with her. And I can't."' "Well, then, it's an impossible situation." "It's a damnable situation, but it's the only decent one. You forget there's Maisie." "No, I don't. Maisie doesn't know?" "Oh Lord, no. And she never will." "You ought to tell her." Jerrold was silent. "My dear Jerrold, it's the only sensible thing. Tell her straight and get her to divorce you." "I was going to. Then she got ill and I couldn't." "She isn't ill now." "She will be if I tell her. It'll simply kill her." "It won't. It may--even--cure her." "It'll make her frightfully unhappy. And it'll bring back that infernal pain. If you'd seen her, Eliot, you'd know how impossible it is. We simply can't be swine. And if I could, Anne couldn't.... No. We've got to stick it somehow, Anne and I." "It's all wrong, Jerrold." "I know it's all wrong. But it's the best we can do. You don't suppose Anne would be happy if we did Maisie down." "No. No. She wouldn't. You're right there. But it's a damnable business." "Oh, damnable, yes." Jerrold laughed in his agony. Yet he saw, as if he had never seen it before, Eliot's goodness and the sadness and beauty of his love for Anne. He had borne for years what Jerrold was bearing now, and Anne had not loved him. He had never known for one moment the bliss of love or any joy. He had had nothing. And Jerrold remembered with a pang of contrition that he had never cared enough for Eliot. It had always been Colin, the young, breakable Colin, who had clung to him and followed him. Eliot had always gone his own queer way, keeping himself apart. And now Eliot was nearer to him than anything in the world, except Anne. "I'm sorry, Jerrold." "You're pretty decent, Eliot, to be sorry--I believe you honestly want me to have Anne." "I wouldn't go so far as that, old man. But I believe I honestly want Anne to have you.... I say, she hasn't gone yet, has she?" "No. Maisie's keeping her for dinner in your honour. You'll probably find her in the drawing-room now." "Where's Maisie?" "She won't worry you. She's gone to lie down." Eliot went into the drawing-room and found Anne there. She looked at him. "You've been talking to Jerrold," she said. "Yes, Anne. I'm worried about him." "So am I." "And I'm worried about you." "And he's worried about Maisie." "Yes. I suppose he began by not seeing she was ill, and now he does see it he thinks she's going to die. I've been trying to explain to him that she isn't." "Can you explain why she's got into this state? It's not as if she wasn't happy. She _is_ happy."