Althea was silent for a moment. She hardly knew what the odd shock that went through her meant; then she recognised that it was fear. To see it as that gave her courage; at all events, love Gerald as she did, she would not be a coward for love of him. The effort was in her voice, making it tremulous, as she said: 'But, Gerald, you know I don't like hunting; you know I think it cruel.' He looked at her; he smiled. 'So do I, you nice dear.' 'But you won't pain me by doing it--you will give it up?' It was now his turn to look really a little frightened. 'But it's in my blood and bones, the joy of it, Althea. You wouldn't, seriously, ask me to give it up for a whim?' 'Oh, it isn't a whim.' 'A theory, then.' 'I think you ought to give it up for a theory like that one. Yes, I even think that you ought to give it up to please me.' 'But why shouldn't you give up your theory to please me?' He had turned his eyes on his papers now, and was feigning to scan them. 'It is a question of right and wrong to me.' Gerald was silent for a moment. He was not irritated, she saw that; not angry. He quite recognised her point, and he didn't like her the less for holding to it; but he recognised his own point just as clearly, and, after the little pause, she found that he was resolute in holding to it. 'I'm afraid I can't give it up--even to please you, dear,' he said. Althea sat looking down at the papers that lay on the table; she saw them through tears of helpless pain. There was nothing to be done and nothing to be said. She could not tell him that, since he did not love her sufficiently to give up a pleasure for her sake, she must give him up; nor could she tell him that he must not use her money for pleasures that she considered wrong. But it was this second impossible retort--the first, evidently, did not cross his mind--that was occupying Gerald. He was not slow in seeing delicacies, though he was slow indeed in seeing what might have been solemnities. The position couldn't strike him as solemn; he couldn't conceive that a woman might break off her engagement for such a cause; but he did see his own position of beneficiary as delicate. His next words showed it: 'Of course I won't hunt here, if you really say not. I could go away to hunt. The difficulty is that we want to keep horses, don't we? and if I have a hunter it will be rather funny never to use him at home.' Althea saw that it would be rather funny. 'If you have a hunter I would far rather you hunted here than that you went away to hunt.' 'Perhaps you'd rather I had a horse that couldn't hunt. The hunter would be your gift, of course. I could just go on depending on my friends for a mount, though that would look funny, too, wouldn't it?' 'If you will hunt, I want to give you your hunter.' 'In a sense it will be using your money to do something you disapprove of.' Gerald was smiling at her as though he felt that he was bringing her round to reasonableness. 'Perhaps that's ugly.'