"It all depends," said she, "on what you mean by destiny." "Well, say I mean the end, the end I'm moving towards, the end I ultimately arrive at--" "Surely that depends on your character, your character, of course, as a whole." "It may or mayn't. It may depend on what I eat or don't eat for dinner, on the paper I take in or the pattern of my waistcoat. And the end may be utterly repellent to my character as a whole. Say I end by adopting an unsuitable profession. Is that my character or my destiny?" "Your character, I think, or you wouldn't have adopted it." "H'm. Supposing it adopts me?" "It couldn't--against your will." "No. But my will in this instance might not be the expression of my character as a whole. Why, I may be doing violence to my character as a whole by--by the unique absurdity that dishes me. That's destiny, if you like, but it's not character--not my character, anyhow." Personalities again. Whither could he flee from their presence? Even the frigid realm of abstractions was shaken by the beating of his own passionate heart. Her eyes had the allurements of the confessional; he hovered, fascinated, round the holy precincts, for ever on the brink of revelation. It was ungovernable, this tendency to talk about himself. In another minute--But no, most decidedly that was not what he was there for. If it came to that, what _was_ he there for? It was so incredible that he should be there at all. And yet there he was going to stay, for three weeks, and more. He had come to tell her so. Miss Harden received the announcement as if it had been a foregone conclusion. "It is settled, then?" said she, "you will have no more scruples?" "None." "There's only one thing. I must ask you not to give anybody any information about the library. We don't want to be bothered with dealers and collectors. Some of the books are so valuable that we should never have any peace if their whereabouts became known. Can you keep the secret?" His heart sank as he remembered the Aldine Plato and the Neapolitan Horace and the _Aurea Legenda_ of Wynkyn de Worde. But he pledged himself to absolute discretion, an inviolable secrecy. Why not? He was a dealer himself and obviously it was his interest to keep other dealers in the dark. It was an entirely sensible and business-like pledge. And yet in giving it he felt that he was committing himself to something unique, something profound, and intimate and irrevocable. He had burnt his ships, severed himself body and soul from Rickman's. If it were Miss Harden's interest that he should defend that secret from his own father, he would have to defend it. He had given his word; and for the life of him he could not tell why.