'In the meantime, go back to Fru Thyregod; why trouble to lie to me? And to Kato, go back to Kato. Write to the woman in England, too. I will go to Miloradovitch, or to any of the others.' He was betrayed into saying,-- 'The accusation of mean entanglements comes badly from your lips.' In her heart she guessed pretty shrewdly at his real relation towards women: a self-imposed austerity, with violent relapses that had no lasting significance, save to leave him with his contemptuous distaste augmented. His mind was too full of other matters. For Kato alone he had a profound esteem. Eve answered his last remark,-- 'I will prove to you the little weight of my entanglements, by dismissing Miloradovitch to-day; you have only to say the word.' 'You would do that--without remorse?' 'Miloradovitch is nothing to me.' 'You are something to him--perhaps everything.' 'Cela ne me regarde pas,' she replied. 'Would you do as much for me? Fru Thyregod, for instance? or Kato?' Interested and curious, he said,-- 'To please you, I should give up Kato?' 'You would not?' 'Most certainly I should not. Why suggest it? Kato is your friend as much as mine. Are all women's friendships so unstable?' 'Be careful, Julian: you are on the quicksands.' 'I have had enough of these topics,' he said, 'will you leave them?' 'No; I choose my own topics; you shan't dictate to me.' 'You would sacrifice Miloradovitch without a thought, to please me--why should it please me?--but you would not forgo the indulgence of your jealousy! I am not grateful. Our senseless quarrels,' he said, 'over which we squander so much anger and emotion.' But he did not stop to question what lay behind their important futility. He passed his hand wearily over his hair, 'I am deluded sometimes into believing in their reality and sanity. You are too difficult. You ... you distort and bewitch, until one expects to wake up from a dream. Sometimes I think of you as a woman quite apart from other women, but at other times I think you live merely by and upon fictitious emotion and excitement. Must your outlook be always so narrowly personal? Kato, thank Heaven, is very different. I shall take care to choose my friends amongst men, or amongst women like Kato,' he continued, his exasperation rising. 'Julian, don't be so angry: it isn't my fault that I hate politics.' He grew still angrier at her illogical short-cut to the reproach which lay, indeed, unexpressed at the back of his mind.