The code never had a more unquestioning, a more contented adherent than Godfrey. Without theorizing--he disliked theories and had a good-natured distrust of them--he hit just that balance of conduct whereof the code approves; if he had talked about the matter at all (the code does not favour too much talking) he might have said that he was "not a saint" but that he "played the game." His fellow-adherents would understand perfectly what he meant. And the last thing in the world that he contemplated or desired was to attack, or openly to flout, accepted standards. The code never encourages a man to do that. Besides, he had a father, a mother, and a sister, orthodox-thinking people, very fond and proud of him; he would not willingly do or say anything to shock them. Even from a professional point of view--but when the higher motives are sufficient to decide the issue, why need they invoke the somewhat compromising alliance of others purely prudential? By now he was very much in love with Winnie Maxon, but he was also desperately vexed with her, and with all the amiable theorizers at Shaylor's Patch. The opportunity had seemed perfect for what he wanted, and what he wanted seemed exactly one of the allowed compromises--an ideal elasticity! Whom would it wrong? Not Cyril Maxon, surely? He was out of court. Whom would it offend? There was nobody to offend, if the affair were managed quietly--as it could be here in the country. And she liked him; though he had made no declaration yet, he could not doubt that she liked him very much. But the theorizers had been at her. When he delicately felt his way, discussing her position, or, professedly, the position of women in general whose marriages had proved a failure, she leant back, looking adorably pretty, and calmly came out with a remark of a profoundly disconcerting nature. "If I ever decided to--to link my life with a man's again, I should do it quite openly. I should tell my husband and my friends. I should consider myself as doing just the same thing as if I were marrying again. I talked it all over with Tora the other night, and she quite agreed with me." Agreed with her! Tora had put it into her head, of course, Godfrey thought angrily. The idea had Tora's hall-mark stamped large in its serene straightforward irrationality. "But that'd mean an awful row, and the--a case, and all that!" "I hope it would. But Cyril doesn't approve of divorce." "Then you'd never be able to--to get regular, as long as he lived." "I think I should be regular, without getting regular," she answered, smiling. "What's the good of defying the world?" "Isn't that the only way bad things get altered?" "It needs a good deal of courage to do things like that--right or wrong." "I should rely on the man I loved to give me the courage."