Eve sat in silence for some minutes, watching the pale road rushing towards them out of the darkness. Canterton was not driving the car so strenuously, but was letting her slide along lazily at fifteen miles an hour. Very soon the dawn would be coming up, and the white points of the stars would melt into invisibility. “We don’t want to be too early.” “No.” There was a pause, and then Eve uttered the thoughts of the last half hour. “One thing troubles me.” “What is that?” “Your wife.” He slackened speed still further, so that he need not watch the road so carefully. “I feel that I am taking——” “What is hers?” “Yes.” His voice was steady and confident. “That need not trouble you. Neither the physical nor the spiritual part of me owes anything to my wife. We are just two strangers who happen to be tied together by a convention. I am speaking neither ironically nor with cynicism. They are just simple facts. I don’t know why we married. I often marvel at what I must have been then. Now I am nothing to her, nor she to me.” “Are you sure?” “Quite sure. Her interests are all outside my life, mine outside hers. We happen to reside in the same house, and meet at table. We do not quarrel, because we are too indifferent to quarrel. You are taking nothing that she would miss.” “And yet!” “Is it the secrecy?” “In a way.” “Well, I am going to tell her. I had decided on that.” She turned to him in astonishment. “Tell her!” “Just the simple fact that I have an affection for you, and that we are going to be fellow-workers. I shall tell her that there is nothing for her to fear, that we shall behave like sensible beings, that it is all clean, and wholesome, and rational.” “But, my dear!” She was overwhelmed for the moment by his audacious sincerity. “But will she believe?” “She will believe me. Gertrude knows that I have never shirked telling her the truth.” “And will she consent?” “I don’t doubt it.” “But surely, to a woman——” “Eve, this sort of problem has always been so smirched and distorted that most people seem unable to see its outlines cleanly. I am going to make her see it cleanly. It may sound strange to you, but I believe she is one of the few women capable of taking a logical and restrained view of it. The thing is not to hurt a woman’s self love publicly. Often she will condone other sorts of relationship if you save her that. In our case there is going to be no sexual, backstairs business. You are too sacred to me. You are part of the mystery of life, of the beauty and strangeness and wonder of things. I love the look in your eyes, the way your lips move, the way you speak to me, every little thing that is you. Do you think I want to take my flowers and crush them with rough physical hands? Should I love them so well, understand them so well? It is all clean, and good, and wholesome.” She lay back, thinking. “I know that it looks to me reasonable and good.”