"That's just it, and it's no good," Helen looked at him levelly. "I'll be your mistress, Geoffrey, at least I think I will; not now I mean,"--she looked fearfully round the room as if the shadows might hear and bear witness against her--"but sometime I think I will be. Anyhow I won't marry anyone but you ever, and you must leave it at that." "My sweet," Geoffrey knelt by her chair and held her against him, "I don't want a mistress, and certainly not you. I want you to marry me, and you will some day, won't you. I can wait." Helen freed herself and sat bolt upright. "I love you in a way, Geoffrey, but don't begin being good to me. I have people who are good to me. If you stop fighting me altogether, I'll simply trample on you. I'd hate you to try and bully me, but I'd hate you still more to be kind to me." "I'm not a very kind person," said Geoffrey soberly. "At home I'm supposed to be moody and difficult--like you I suppose--and Hugh is much more charming and likeable." "That'll do very well then. I like this feeling of half loving you and with the other half being antipathetic to you." "I don't like it. It's hell unless you'll marry me. Listen Helen; if we made a treaty with conditions so that your work was protected, don't you think you could bring yourself to it then?" "I might; I don't want to; it's against my better judgment and I'd be a bad wife, but I might. Tell me what conditions you'd suggest. For one thing there's children." "I don't see that that matters. Don't have them if you don't want them." "Wouldn't you mind?" "No, not a bit now anyhow. And if I wanted one in ten years or so perhaps you might consider it." "Geoffrey, I almost think we might manage," Helen said eagerly. "I've always ruled out marriage, and I won't do it at once anyhow, but if we did really make a sort of treaty that would safeguard my painting, then perhaps in two or three years I'd marry you." "I'll work out the clauses. You'll have to be protected against me, and against children, and against my relations, and heaps of other things." "Then why do you want me at all?" Helen asked in a small voice. "I do. I want you most painfully. I hate your work in a way because it comes between us, but it's part of you too, and I don't know you well enough to disassociate bits of you from other bits." "Don't hate it, Geoffrey. It's the most important part of me. I've not done anything to matter yet, but I'll show you my last thing if you like. I had an idea that all this talk about schools and styles was nonsense and that one could paint in two distinct styles in one picture and still keep the unity." She went over and lifted a canvas that was turned against the wall. "It's not framed," she said. "So I'll hold it up against these curtains; they're a good background." She held it at arm's length standing very straight and tall, the outstretched arm and hand trembling a little with its weight.