“Like everybody else,” said Gumbril irritatingly. It amused him to see the rabbits scampering about at last. “I’ve never known a woman like that before.” Gumbril laughed. “You’d say that of any woman you happened to be interested in,” he said. “You’ve never known any women at all.” He knew much more about Rosie, already, than Shearwater did, or probably ever would. Shearwater meditated. He thought of Mrs. Viveash, her cool, pale, critical eyes; her laughter, faint and mocking; her words that pierced into the mind, goading it into thinking unprecedented thoughts. “She interests me,” he repeated. “I want you to tell me what she’s really like.” He emphasized the word really, as though there must, in the nature of things, be a vast difference between the apparent and the real Mrs. Viveash. Most lovers, Gumbril reflected, picture to themselves, in their mistresses, a secret reality, beyond and different from what they see every day. They are in love with somebody else—their own invention. And sometimes there is a secret reality; and sometimes reality and appearance are the same. The discovery, in either case, is likely to cause a shock. “I don’t know,” he said. “How should I know? You must find out for yourself.” “But you knew her, you know her well,” said Shearwater, almost with anxiety in his voice. “Not so well as all that.” Shearwater sighed profoundly, like a whale in the night. He felt restless, incapable of concentrating. His mind was full of a horrible confusion. A violent eruptive bubbling up from below had shaken its calm clarity to pieces. All this absurd business of passion—he had always thought it nonsense, unnecessary. With a little strength of will one could shut it out. Women—only for half an hour out of the twenty-four. But she had laughed, and his quiet, his security had vanished. “I can imagine,” he had said to her yesterday, “I can imagine myself giving up everything, work and all, to go running round after you.” “And do you suppose I should enjoy that?” Mrs. Viveash had asked. “It would be ridiculous,” he said, “it would be almost shameful.” And she had thanked him for the compliment. “And at the same time,” he went on, “I feel that it might be worth it. It might be the only thing.” His mind was confused, full of new thoughts. “It’s difficult,” he said after a pause, “arranging things. Very difficult. I thought I had arranged them so well....” “I never arrange anything,” said Gumbril, very much the practical philosopher. “I take things as they come.” And as he spoke the words, suddenly he became rather disgusted with himself. He shook himself; he climbed up out of his own morass. “It would be better, perhaps, if I arranged things more,” he added.