“Of course not. You’re really rather unintelligent about this, George. You know perfectly well I love you and shall never love any one else so much. But there mustn’t be any lying and dissimulation, and no artificial fidelity. If you want to go off for a night or a week-end or a week with some charming girl or woman, you must go. And if I want to do the same with a man, I must. Don’t you see that by thwarting a mere _béguin_ you may turn it into something more serious, whereas by enjoying it you get rid of it? Probably, as my Swedish woman says, one is so much disappointed that a single night is more than enough, and one returns to one’s love eagerly, cured of wandering fancies for the next six months.” “Yes, I daresay there’s something in that. It seems sound. And yet if the original relationship is so secure and if the other affair is so slight and unimportant and merely physical, it seems unnecessary to hurt one’s love by speaking about it. I don’t tell you every day what I had for lunch. Besides, even if one spends only one night with another person that implies at least a one night’s preference which might hurt.” “Which might hurt!” Elizabeth mocked. “George, you’re being positively old-fashioned. Why, when you go to Paris, isn’t that a preference? And when I go to Fanny’s cottage in the country for a week-end, isn’t that a preference? How do you know we’re not Sapphic friends?” “I’m jolly sure you’re not! You’re neither of you in the least bit Lesbian types. Besides, you’d have told me.” “You see! You know quite well I’d have told you.” “Yes, but going to Paris or the country for a few days isn’t the same sort of ‘preference.’” The argument tailed off in a futile attempt to define “preference.” Ultimately Elizabeth carried her point. It was definitely established that “nothing could break” a relationship such as theirs; but that “love itself must have rest” and therefore there was wisdom in occasional short separations; that so far from breaking up such a relationship occasional “slight affairs” elsewhere would only strengthen and stimulate it. George allowed himself to be convinced. The snag here lay in the fact that he had definitely sensed the possible danger of arousing jealousy, whereas Elizabeth, confident in herself and the theories of her Swedish old maid, scorned the idea that so base a passion could even enter _their_ relation. * * * * * About two months after this George and Elizabeth were cheerfully dining in a small Soho restaurant when Fanny came in with a young man, the “young man from Cambridge,” Reggie Burnside. “Oh, look!” exclaimed Elizabeth, “there’s Fanny and a friend with her. Fanny! Fanny!” signalling across the room. Fanny came across. “This is George Winterbourne. You’ve often heard of Fanny, George. I say, Fanny, do come and have dinner with us.” “Yes, do.” “But I’ve got Reggie Burnside with me.” “Well, bring him along too.”