"Bear with my egoism a moment--several moments, for I'm going to be tediously autobiographical. Once, when I was a young man, I was offered some journalistic work. It was at the very start; I had barely tasted print. Remember, I was ambitious, and it meant the beginning of a career; I was poor, and it meant a good salary. But it meant the production of a column of 'copy' a-day, whether I was in the vein for it or no. I wanted it badly, and--I refused it. I could _not_ be tied down. Since then I have never bound myself to any publisher or editor. This anecdote is not in the least interesting, but it is characteristic of my whole nature, which is my reason for inflicting it on you. That nature may be an unfortunate one, but I didn't invent it myself. Anyhow, knowing it as thoroughly as I do, I've made up my mind never to do certain things--never, for instance, to ask any woman to be my wife. Marriage is the one impossible thing. It involves duty, or, worse still, duties. Now, as it happens, I consider duty to be the very lowest of moral motives. In fact--don't be shocked--it isn't moral at all. It is to conduct what authority is to belief--that is, it has nothing whatever to do with it. No. Goodness no more depends on duty than truth depends on authority. Forgive me; I know you are a metaphysician and a moral philosopher, and you'll appreciate this. You're going to make a quotation; please don't. It's perfectly useless to tell me that Wordsworth calls duty 'stern daughter of the voice of God.' It may be; I don't know. I only know that if I believed it was my _duty_ to live, I'd commit suicide to-morrow. I don't like stern daughters. But granted that Wordsworth had the facts at his finger-ends, God's voice is freedom, whatever its daughters may be. That's not a doctrine I'd preach to every one; but for me, and those like me, freedom, absolute freedom, is the condition of all sane thinking and feeling. Fancy loving any one because it was your duty! Take a case. Supposing I married: the more I loved my wife, the less a free agent I should be; and when I once realised that I wasn't free, there would be an end of my love. I deplore this state of things, but I can't alter it. So you see, when I most want to give you love and protection, I can only offer you friendship, which you don't want perhaps, and--er--good advice, which you won't take." But she was looking beyond him, far away. "As I can't possibly ask you to--accept my conditions, perhaps the cleverest thing I could do would be to go away and never see you again. There's no other alternative." Her lips parted as if she would have spoken, but no words came. They searched each other's faces, the woman thirsting for life, for love; the man thirsting too--for knowledge. And he knew.