I said "Of course. But for your political foresight and your virtuous action we should never have had Tariff Reform." "We should never have had anything," she said. "And look at him now. Look how he's crumpled up since he left me. It's pitiful." "It is. I'm afraid Mrs. Withers doesn't care about Tariff Reform." "Poor thing. No. Don't imagine I'm jealous of her, Roly. She hasn't got him. I mean she hasn't got what I had." "All the same he left you. And you weren't ecstatically happy with him the last year or two." "I daresay I'd have done better to have married you, if that's what you mean." It wasn't what I meant. But she'd always entertained the illusion that she could marry me any minute if she wanted to; and I hadn't the heart to take it from her since it seemed to console her for the way, the really very infamous way, he had left her. So I said, "Much better." "It would have been so nice, so safe," she said. "But I never played for safety." Then she made one of her quick turns. "Frances Archdale ought to marry you. Why doesn't she?" "How should I know? Frances's reasons would be exquisite. I suppose I didn't appeal to her sense of fitness." "Sense of fiddlesticks. She just hasn't got any temperament, that girl." "Any temperament for me, you mean." "I mean pure cussedness," said Lena. "Perhaps. But, you see, if I were unfortunate enough she probably _would_ marry me. If I lost my eyesight or a leg or an arm, if I couldn't sell any more pictures--" "If you can understand Frances, you can understand me. That's how I felt about Dickey. I wasn't in love with him. I was sorry for him. I knew he'd go to pieces if I wasn't there to keep him together. Perhaps it's the maternal instinct." "Perhaps," I said. Lena's reasons for her behaviour amused me; they were never exquisite, like Frances's, but she was anxious that you should think they were. "So you see," she said, "they don't count, and Norry really _is_ the first." I reflected that he would be also, probably, the last. She had, no doubt, to make the most of him. But it was preposterous that she should waste so much good passion; preposterous that she should imagine for one moment she could keep the fellow. I had to warn her. "Of course, if you care to take the risk of him--" I said. "He won't stick to you, Lena." "Why shouldn't he?" I couldn't tell her. I couldn't say, "Because you're thirteen ears older than he is." That would have been cruel. And it would have been absurd, too, when she could so easily look not a year older than his desiccated thirty-four. It only took a little success like this, her actual triumph in securing him. So I said, "Because it isn't in him. He's a bounder and a rotter." Which was true. "Not a bounder, Roly dear. His father's Sir Gilbert Hippisley. Hippisleys of Leicestershire." "A moral bounder, Lena. A slimy eel. Slips and wriggles out of things. You'll never hold him. You're not his first affair, you know."