And yet she smiled just a little at the corners of her mouth, because she knew that, when Boreham demanded the right of every man to criticise fearlessly--what he really had in his mind was the vision of himself, Boreham, criticising fearlessly. He thought of himself, for instance, as trying to shame the British public for saying slimily: "Let's pretend to be monogamous!" He thought of himself calling out pluckily: "Here, you self-satisfied humbugs, I'm going to say straight out--we ain't monogamous----" He never contemplated May Dashwood coming and saying to him: "And are _you_ not a self-satisfied humbug, pretending that there is no courage, no endurance, no moral effort superior to your own?" It was this that made May smile a little. "The fact remains," he said, feeling his way hotly, blindly, "that a man can, and does, make a woman happy, if he loves her. All I ask," he went on, "is to be allowed the chance of doing this, and you gibe." "I don't gibe," said May, "I'm preaching. And, after all, I ought not to preach, because marriage does not concern me--directly. I shall not marry again, Mr. Boreham." Boreham stared hard at her and his eyebrows worked. All she had just been saying provoked his anger; it disagreed with him, made him dismal, and yet, at least, he had no rival! She hadn't got hold of any so-called saint as a future husband. Middleton hadn't been meddling, nor Bingham, and there was no shadowy third anywhere in town. She was heart free! That was something! There was the dead husband, of course, but his memory would fade as time went on. "Just now, people who are dead or dying, are in the swim," thought Boreham; "but just wait till the war is over!" He swiftly imagined publishers and editors of journals refusing anything that referred to the war or to any dismal subject connected with it. The British public would have no use for the dead when the war was over. The British public would be occupied with the future; how to make money, how to spend it. Stories about love and hate among the living would be wanted, or pleasant discourses about the consolations of religion and blessed hopes of immortality for those who were making the money and spending it! Boreham sneered as he thought this, and yet he himself desired intensely that men, and especially women, should forget the dead, and, above all, that May should forget her dead and occupy herself in being a pretty and attractive person of the female sex. "I will wait," said Boreham, eagerly; "I won't ask you for an answer now." "Now you know my position, you will not put any question to me!" said May, very quietly. There came a moment's oppressive silence. "I may continue to be your friend," he demanded; "you won't punish me?" and his voice was urgent. "Of course not," she said. "I may come and see you?" he urged again. "Any friends of mine may come and see me, if they care to," she said; "but I am very much occupied during the day--and tired in the evenings."