“Bertha, stop crying. I know I’m a brute. But it’s fortunate for you that I am. I’m only a brute. There’s nothing to cry for.” He over-estimated deafness in weepers. And when women flooded their country he always sat down and waited. Often as this had happened to him, he had never attempted to circumvent it. He felt like a person who is taking a little dog for a walk at the end of a string. His voice appeared husky and artificial near her ear. Turned towards the window, he looked at the green stain of the foliage outside. Something was explained. Nature was not friendly to him; its metallic tints jarred. Or anyhow, it was the same for all men. The sunlight seen like an adventurous stranger in the streets was intimate with Bertha. The scrap of crude forest had made him want to be away unaccompanied. But it was tainted with her. If he went away now he would only be _playing_ at liberty. He had been right in not accepting the invitations of the spring. The settlement of this question stood between him and pleasure. A momentary well-being had been accepted. The larger spiritual invitation he had rejected. He would only take that when he was free. In its annual expansion Nature sent its large unstinting invitations. But Nature loved the genius and liberty in him. Tarr felt the invitation would not have been so cordial had he proposed taking a wife and family! He led her passively protesting to the sofa. Like a sick person, she was half indignant at being moved. He should have remained, a perpendicular bed for her, till the fever had passed. Revolted at the hypocrisy required, he left her standing at the edge of the sofa. She stood crouching a little, her face buried in her hands, in indignant absurdity. The only moderately clean thing to do would be to walk out of the door at once and never come back. With his background of months of different behaviour this could not be done.