“I say, I haven’t offended you? It mayn’t seem quite sporting, talking like this, when you’ve been ill, but, by George! I couldn’t help it.” She said very gently: “How could I be offended? Don’t you know that you are doing me a very great honour?” “Oh, I say, do you mean it?” “Of course.” Eve saw a hand come out tentatively and then recede, and in a flash she understood what the possible nearness of this man meant to her. She shivered, and knew that in the intimate physical sense he would be hopelessly repellent. She could not help it, even though he had touched her spiritually, and made her feel that there were elements of fineness in him that were worthy of any woman’s trust. He had been silent for some seconds, and his emotions could not be stopped now that they were discovering expression. “Look here, I’m forty-six, and I’m going bald, but I’m a bit of a boy still. I was made to be married, but somehow I didn’t. I’ve done pretty well in business. I’ve saved about seven thousand pounds, and I’m making nine hundred a year. You ought to know. I’m ready to do anything. We could take a jolly little house out somewhere—Richmond, or Hampstead, say, the new garden place. And I don’t know why we shouldn’t keep a little motor, or a trap. Of course, I’m telling you this, because you ought to know. I’m running on ahead rather, but it’s of no consequence. I only want you to know what’s what.” He was out of breath again, and she sat and stared at the fire. His rush of words had confused her. It was like being overwhelmed with food and water after one had been dying of hunger and thirst and fear in a desert. His essential and half pathetic sincerity went to her heart, nor could she help her gratitude going out to him. Not for a moment did she think of him as a fat, commonplace sentimentalist, a middle-aged fool who fell over his own feet when he tried to make love. He was more than a good creature. He was a man who had a right to self-expression. She rallied her will-power. “I don’t know what to say to you. I suppose I am feeling very weak.” He rushed into self-accusation. “There, I’ve been a selfish beast. I oughtn’t to have come and upset you like this. But I couldn’t help telling you.” “I know. It hasn’t hurt me. But you have offered me such a big thing, that I am trying to realise it all. I don’t think I’m made for marriage.” “Oh, don’t say that! I know I’m a blundering idiot!” “No, no, it is not you! It is marriage.” “You don’t believe in marriage?” “Not that. I mean, for myself. I don’t think I could make you understand why.” He looked puzzled and distressed. “It’s my fault. I couldn’t do the thing delicately. I’m clumsy.” “No, no. I have told you that it is not that.” “Well, you think it over. Supposing we leave it till you get stronger?” “But you are offering everything and I nothing.”