But no; he wouldn't consider the matter. "Whatever you say, Hilton, you won't alter my mind. I've no right to ask for such a sacrifice--no right even to _think_ of it.... If there's anything at all that I've learnt from experience, it ought to be this--that women can't bear to give up _things_--especially the sort of things that I don't much care about." In some ways, that was the nearest we ever got to talking about the past. "If _I've_ learnt anything from experience," I countered, "it's that one woman can be absolutely and entirely different from every other." But it was still no use; he was adamant. Whatever I said, he had some rejoinder; there was no sign of his conversion. The dawn peered over the ridge of the hills before we left off talking, and I had to admit to myself that, so far as the immediate object of the discussion was concerned, I had failed altogether. The idea of proposing marriage to June seemed to afflict him with a kind of mental explosion whenever he thought about it. It was preposterous. Rather refuse or accept a thousand jobs than commit such tempestuous folly. Incredible that I should ever have seriously suggested it.... And so on.... And so on.... And then we went to bed and to sleep. V All that happened last night; or, to be precise, early this morning.... It is a strange thing to have caught up with the present after so long writing of the past. Ever since I arrived here I have been at my desk; I was tired when I began, but Roebuck's iced coffee and the achievement of bringing this record up-to-date have made me feel curiously fresh and exhilarated. It is the business lunch-hour now, and all the seats in Lincoln's Inn Fields, which is just across the road from my window, are filled with office-workers enjoying their respite. They look happy; the whole world looks happy--but that, maybe, is because I am feeling happy myself. The skies have cleared miraculously during the past twenty-four hours--have shown me Terry enslaved to June's calm and inarticulate youth, and June (I think) no less attached to Terry. Whether it comes to anything is, of course, another matter. June is very young, and Terry's prospects are certainly none too rosy. Besides that, there is all the difference in the world between being pleasantly fond of a man and wanting to emigrate with him to the other side of the world. I'm rather afraid I lost sight of that during my argument with Terry; it all seemed just a shade easier than it is. The main and incontrovertible facts are these--that Terry will never propose to her on his own, and that if he were to take the Australian job and go away, June would be left here miserable. I always find it so hard to know what to do--whether to interfere or not. On the whole, I lean to interference; I hate minding my own business, which is usually so much less interesting than other people's. And yet, in this case, it _may_ have been a mistake to write that interfering note to June.