“Nonsense! Besides, I don’t believe in marrying a woman with money. I’d rather have the business on my own back. Of course, I should settle two or three thousand on you, you know, so that you would have a little income for pin-money. I think that’s only fair to a woman.” She coloured and felt guilty. “I think you are more generous than fair. Don’t say any more. I’ll—I’ll think it over.” He got up and seized his hat. “That’s it—that’s it. You think it over! I’m not one of those fellows who thinks that a woman is going to rush at him directly he says come. It means a lot to a woman, a dickens of a lot. And you’re not quite yourself yet, are you? It’s awfully good of you to have listened.” He reached for her hand, bent over it with cumbrous courtesy, and covered up a sudden silence by getting out of the room as quickly as he could. When John Parfit had gone, Eve lay back in her chair with a feeling of intense languor. All the strength and independence seemed to melt out of her, and she lay like a tired child on the knees of circumstance. And then it was that she was tempted—tempted in this moment of weariness, by the knowledge that a way of escape lay so very near. She had been offered a protected life, food, shelter, a generous allowance, love, leisure, all that the orthodox woman is supposed to desire. He was kind, understanding in his way, reliable, a man whose common sense was to be trusted, and he would take her away from this paltry scramble, pilot her out of the crowd, and give her an affection that would last. Her intuition recognised the admirable husband in him. This middle-class man had a rich vein of sentiment running through his nature, and he was not too clever or too critical to tire. Dusk began to fall, and the fire was burning low. It was the hour for memories, and into the dusk of that little suburban room, glided a subtle sense of other presences, and she found herself thinking of Canterton and the child. If she were to have a child like Lynette. But it could not be Lynette—it could not be his child, the child of that one man. She sat up, shocked and challenged. What was she about to do? Sell herself. Promise to give something that it was not in her power to give. Deceive a man who most honestly loved her. It would be prostitution. There was only one man living to whom she could have granted complete physical comradeship. She was not made to be touched by other hands. She rose and lit the gas, and sat down at the table to write a letter. She would tell John Parfit the truth; put the shame of temptation out of her way. It was not a long letter, but it came straight from her heart. No man could be offended by it—hurt by it. It was human, honourable, a tribute to the man to whom it was written. When she had addressed and stamped it, she rang the bell for Mrs. Buss. “I should be very much obliged if you could have this posted for me.” Mrs. Buss was affable, having smelt matrimony and safe money.