"If they're religious, they're like that. If they're not religious they're drunk. If they're not drunk you never know when they're going to leave you. That's the sort of life I came out of and that's the sort of life I'm never going back into if I can help it." "You won't need to, my dear." "You never know." With which disquieting assurance he was left to reflect that she seemed to have been as much upset by her visit to June Street as himself. He was tormented by a vision of England, this little isle, the home of heroes and great men, groaning beneath the weight of miles of such streets and sinking under the tread of millions of men like James Boothroyd. Lustily he strove for a cool, intellectual consideration of it all, a point from which the network of the meanish streets of the cities of England could be seen as justifiable, necessary, and unto their own ends sufficient, but, seen from the Copas world, they were repulsive and harsh; viewed through Matilda they were touched with magic. They were both unsettled and passed through days of irritation when they came perilously near to quarreling. In the end they made it up and found that they had conquered new territory for intimacy. On that territory they discussed their marriage, and he told her that he would like her to have a child. She burst into tears, and confessed that after her calamity the doctor had told her it was very improbable she ever would. He was for so long silent on that, being numbed by the sudden chill at his heart, that she took alarm and came and knelt at his side and implored him to forgive her, and said that if he did not she would go out on to the railway or into the canal. Then he, too, wept, and they held each other close and sobbed out that the world was very, very cruel, but they must be all in all to each other. And he said they would go away and settle down in some pretty place and live quietly and happily together right away from towns and theaters and everything. She shook her head, and, with the tears streaming down her cheeks, she said: No, she did not want to be a lady; at least, not that sort of a lady. He made many suggestions, but always her mind flew ahead of his, and she had constructed some horrid sort of a picture of the existence it would entail. At last he gave it up and said he supposed if there was to be a change it would come of its own accord. It came.