He looked up as sharply as his facial curves permitted. "Nothing of the sort. She's simply not the sort of person you _do_ call on; and I don't mean you to begin." "Why not?" "Because you're my wife and you have a certain position in the county. That's why." "Rather a snobby reason, isn't it? You said I might call on anybody I liked." "So you may, in reason, provided you don't begin with Mrs. Levitt." "I may have to end with her," said Fanny. Mr. Waddington had many reasons for not wishing Fanny to call on Mrs. Levitt. He wanted to keep his wife, because she was his wife, in a place apart from Mrs. Levitt and above her, to mark the distance and distinction that there was between them. He wanted to keep himself, as Fanny's husband, apart and distant, by way of enhancing his male attraction. And he wanted to keep Mrs. Levitt apart, to keep her to himself, as the hidden woman of passionate adventure. Hitherto their intercourse had had the charm, the unique, irreplaceable charm of things unacknowledged and clandestine. Mrs. Levitt was unique; irreplaceable. He couldn't think of any other woman who would be a suitable substitute. There was little Barbara Madden; she had been afraid of him; but his passions were still too young to be stirred by the crudity of a girl's fright; if it came to that, he preferred the reassuring ease of Mrs. Levitt. And he didn't mean it to come to that. But though Mr. Waddington did not actually look forward to a time when he would be Mrs. Levitt's lover, he had visions of the pure fancy in which he saw himself standing on Mrs. Levitt's doorstep after dark; say, once a fortnight, on her servant's night out; he would sound a muffled signal on the knocker and the door would he half-opened by Elise. Elise! He would slip through in a slender and mysterious manner; he would go on tip-toe up and down her stairs, recapturing a youthful thrill out of the very risks they ran, yet managing the affair with a consummate delicacy and discretion. At this point Mr. Waddington's fancy heard another door open down the street; somebody came out and saw him in the light of the passage; somebody went by with a lantern; somebody timed his comings and goings. He felt the palpitation, the cold nausea of detection. No. You couldn't do these things in a little place like Wyck-on-the-Hill, where everybody knew everybody else's business. And there was Toby, too. Sometimes, perhaps, on a Sunday afternoon, when Toby and the servant would be out. Yes. Sunday afternoon between tea-time and church-time. Or he could meet her in Oxford or Cheltenham or in London. Wiser. Week-ends. More satisfactory. Risk of being seen there too, but you must take some risks. Surprising how these things _were_ kept secret.