They look each other in the face. She knows that he is lying, and he knows she knows. But she has a dignity that will not descend to the vulgarity of cross-examination. “Very well,” she says, and again turns, leaving him to the sting of his jealousy. And it is not till nearly four that he hears, at last, the quick, breathless voice; hears its answering “Hullo!” in the casual tone of one who is happy and tired, and cannot be bothered at this late hour. “What, you!” it says, “at this time. Where have you been gadding round?” He keeps his dignity; he would not betray to her the secret of his long night’s vigil. The tone of his voice as he replies to her is equally casual, equally pre-occupied. “A long sitting at the House,” he says. “I’ve only just got back. I thought I’d ring up and say good-night.” “And I’ve only just got in, too.” “Really!” “Yes; dancing at Jack’s, a studio affair, a jolly party. Everyone there, Sybil and Ernest, and Marjorie Cooper and Arthur Winston. Oh, and do you know I believe that Forster ménage is coming to an end. She was dancing with another man the whole evening; rather funny, isn’t it, after all we’ve said?” He agrees that it is funny, and listens for a few moments to the eager flow of talk. “Well, I expect you’re tired,” he says at last. “You’ve got a matinée to-morrow. I mustn’t keep you up. _A bientot._” And he hears the click of the receiver at the other end. And next day they lunch together, and the wretched business begins again at the beginning. He daren’t bring things to a head; he daren’t part with her. He daren’t make sure, and it was with a strong man’s love he won her. How does it end? If I were to attempt the conventional magazine short story I should have to contrive, I suppose, a dramatic climax. But things rarely happen like that, really. There is a working up to a point and a falling away from it. As spring passes into summer, so as one enthusiasm wanes another comes to take its place. We are never rid of our desires; we change them, that is all. The life of all mortals in kissing should pass, Lip to lip while we’re young, then the lip to the glass. And of last love, as of second love and first love; it passes calmly enough probably in the end. There will be an American tour, perhaps. And when she returns they will meet as friends. There will be no abrupt severing, “_coupé net en plein ardeur_.” There will be a pause, and during it he will decide that the time has come for him to grow old decently. But anyway the end is unimportant. The emotional climax is reached on that night of jealousy, in the weakness of a strong man, in his desperate clinging to a waning ecstasy, his cowardice, his determination to know the truth, his pitiful desire to be deceived; and in the rallying of his dignity at the last moment, his refusal to be “gaga,” to play “Père Goriot.”