"Oh no, no, you dear goose, not with you. To be in love with you she'd have to be in love with everything you're _not_, as well as everything you are; with everything you have been, with everything you never were, with everything you will be, with everything you might be, could be, should be." "That's a large order, Edie." "There's a larger one than that. She might sweep all that overboard, see it go by whole pieces (the best pieces) at a time, and still be in love with the dear, incomprehensible, indescribable _you_. That," said Edie, triumphant in her wisdom, "is what being in love is." "And do you think she isn't in it?" "No. Not anywhere near it. But--it's a big but--" "I don't care how big it is. Don't bother me with it." "Bother you? Why, it's a beautiful but. As I said, she isn't in love with you; but she may be any minute. It's just touch and go with her. It depends on _you_." "Heavens, what am I to do? I've done everything." "Yes, you have, but she hasn't. She's done nothing. She doesn't know how to. You've got to show her." He shook his head hopelessly. "You're beyond me. I don't understand. There isn't anything for me to do. How am I to show her?" "I mean show her what there is in it. What it means. What it's going to be for her as well as you. Just go at it hard, harder than you did before you married her." "_I_ see, I've got to make love to her all over again." "Exactly. All over again from the very beginning." "I say!" He took it in, her idea, in all the width and splendour of its simplicity. "And do it differently?" "Oh, very differently." "I don't quite see where the difference is to come in. What did I do before that was so wrong?" "Nothing. That's just the worst of it. It was all too right. Ever so much too right. Don't you see? It's what we've been talking about. You made her in love with your goodness. And she was in love with it, not because it was _your_ goodness, but because it was her own. That's why she wanted to marry it. She couldn't be in love with it for any other reason, because she's an egoist." "No. There you're quite wrong. That's what she isn't." "Oh, you _are_ in love with her. Of course she's an egoist. All the nicest women are. I'm an egoist myself. Do you love me less for it?" "I don't love you less for anything." "Well--unless you can make Anne jealous of me--and you can't--you've got to love me less, now, dear boy. That's where I come in--to be kept out of it." She had led him breathless on her giddy round; she plunged him back into bewilderment. He hadn't a notion where she was taking him to, where they would come out; but there was a desperate delight in the impetuous journey, the wind of her sudden flight lifted him and carried him on. He had always trusted the marvellous inspirations of her heart. She had failed him once; but now he could not deny that she had given him lights, and he looked for a stupendous illumination at the end of the way.