There was something of a pause. Joan lifted her gaze from the sand with a slight surprise in it. But Hugh’s face was averted. She guessed the pain in his eyes. Well, perhaps pain was what she had asked for, more than passion, in what she had just conveyed to him. She said with an intended beautiful frankness, “No, my dear. I’m quite normally selfish. Every one is, you know, but most people are capable of rationalizing their selfishnesses into looking like nobilities. Well, being psychoanalyzed destroys in one, if he coöperates with the discipline, the possibility of this comforting variety of self-deceit. It has destroyed it in me, at any rate. So I cannot say to you what would only be a lie. I cannot be so dishonest, Hugh, as to tell you that your falling in love and marrying and having children by some one you thought very wonderful—more wonderful than me—would make me glad. How could it? It’s very pleasant to be adored. And I love your love. This is true of me emotionally, you understand, my dear. But one cannot act in harmony with his emotions all the time unless he has the facility, which I, thank God, have not, of rationalizing them eternally. No, Hugh, dear. It is the findings of my sane, free mind that I would share with you in this. And that mind says, ‘He would be far happier married to almost any one than to you, Joan Nevin. He needs the great experience of having children of his own, and of being adored, as he adores you.... If you are generous, you will help him to this deliverance, Joan Nevin.’” She paused. She put her hand near his hand on the sand. She looked at it, and finished in a low, quite beautiful intonation, “Dear boy. I love you enough to be frank with you. And I do believe if you could find such a woman, and make such a marriage, that our friendship would be only deepened by it. I love you, in my own way. But, frankly, it is not a way that is good enough for you. That love, such as it is, you can never lose. Your marriage with some wonderful person—only she _must_ be wonderful, Hugh, or I should be unreconcilable—might even deepen it. I think, Hugh, I could love the very children she gave you, for your sake.” “I don’t understand the distinctions you make, Joan, between your sane mind and your emotions. But you are saying that you want me to give you up? You are advising it?”