“You know that you would lose your good name, your life at home, your friends, most of them? Everything that has made life worth living to you?” “Yes—I love you.” “And then there is your husband. He has been very good to you. He has never given you the least cause of complaint. He’s been awfully decent to you.” “Oh! he doesn’t care. It’s you, Jim; I love you heart and soul.” But he knew through it all that she didn’t: the very repetition of the phrase showed that. She was trying, he knew, to persuade herself that she did because of the immediate pleasure that it would bring her. She wasn’t consciously insincere, but he shrank back in his chair from her touch, because he was not sure what he would do if he let her remain there. He put her hands aside firmly. “No, you mustn’t. Look here, I’ve something to tell you. I know you’ll think me an awful cad, but I must be straight with you. I’ve found out something. I’ve been thinking all these days, and, you know, I don’t love you as I thought I did. Not in the fine way that I imagined; I don’t even love you as I love my wife. It is only sensual, all of it. It’s your body that I want, not you. That sounds horrible, doesn’t it? I know, I’m ashamed, but it’s true.” His voice sank into a whisper. He expected her to turn on him with scorn, loathing, hatred. Perhaps she would even make a scene. Well, that was better, at any rate, than going on with it. He might just save his soul and hers in time. But he did not dare to look at her. He was ashamed to raise his eyes. And then, to his amazement, he felt her hand on his knee again. Her face was very close to his and she was speaking very softly. “Well—perhaps—dear, that other kind of love will come. That’s really only one part of it. That other love cannot come at once.” He turned his eyes to her. She was looking at him, smiling. “But you don’t understand, you can’t?” “Yes, I understand.” Then something savage in him began to stir. He caught her hands in his fiercely, roughly. “No, you can’t. I tell you I don’t love you at all. Not as a decent man loves a decent woman. A few weeks ago I thought that I had found my soul. I saw things differently; it was a new world, and I thought that you had shown it me. But it was not really you at all. It isn’t I that you care for, it’s your husband, and we are both being led by the devil—here—now!” “Ah!” she said, drawing back a little. “I thought you were braver than that. You do care for all the old conventional things after all, ‘the sanctity of the marriage tie,’ and all the rest of it. I thought that we had settled all that.” “No,” he answered her. “It isn’t the conventions that I care for, but it’s our souls, yours and mine. If we loved each other it would be a different thing; but I’ve found out there’s something more than thrilling at another person’s touch—that isn’t enough. I don’t love you; we must end it.”