"This obsession you tell me of!" he cried. "It is you." "For the time being," she shortly answered. "Always," he insisted. "It might easily be someone else. Think, Peter. Have you once been free during these last years?" Peter was silent. "What do you want me to say?" he asked at last. "I want you to realise there are other things. You must not give way to this fixed idea." Where before had Peter heard this? It seemed an echo. But he shut his ears. "I have only one fixed idea. It is to marry you. You are pleading against yourself, Vivette." "Put me out of account," she said sharply. "I have already refused." They were again at the point where last night they had failed to agree. Peter rose and walked to the end of the room and back to Vivette. He was beginning to measure her strength and subtlety, and they made it more difficult to lose her. His blood rose against the idea. He caught her roughly by the arm. "Suppose I cannot put all this away? Suppose it has to be really an episode?" Her arm tightened under his grip. She became cold and hostile. "I don't understand," she said. Peter felt his mind twisting like a serpent: "Will you come back with me to last night?" "You are talking nonsense. Put your head into your law-books, write plays, travel about--anything." "I want you, Vivette." She rose, and stood dismissing him. "This is worse than I thought. You are ready to take the second best." "You are first and last." "Therefore," she lashed at him, "you want me for a mistress." "I have asked you to marry me." "Marriage would not be the truth." Peter clenched his hands: "On any terms I must have you." "That is for me to say." Peter looked at Vivette and found her inexorably set against him. Clearly she was not that day to be moved. His passion died, and her words went poignantly home. He released her arm. His increasing dejection prompted Vivette to soften the steel of her manner: "Cool yourself, Peter. Put me out of your mind. You are not looking for a mistress, and I want you to wait for the real thing." "To have you would be very real. You have proved already that you love me." She saw again the serpent's head and crushed it. "I have loved before," she said deliberately. "Last night would have meant less to me than to you. Is that what you want?" Peter cursed himself, and went. "Good-bye," Vivette called to him. "Next time we meet I expect you to be in a better mind." Vivette now had leisure to be surprised at herself. For the first time in her life she had refused something she really wanted. She decided that this was the limit of her generosity. She had refused Peter for herself, but at any rate no other woman should, without a title, pluck the fruit of her sacrifice. She would closely examine any claim on Peter which might be made. XL It did not take Peter long to feel that Vivette was wholly right. He blushed to recall how he had justified her indictment by the way in which he had received it.