She spoke indifferently and flicked the horse with the whip, so that it started forward with a jerk. “You're not very curious. You don't ask me why I can't forget.” “Why?” “Because, with other conditions, it's equally true of men.” “I don't believe that.” “You will when I've told you. To get on nowadays a fellow's got to work day and night.” “You're ambitious?” “Of course I am. I want to have power. I've not had a real holiday for years. Of course I've money, which you say girls don't have; but I've responsibilities. I know nothing of women--I've had no time to learn. That's why I'm so grateful to you for yesterday. With me it's just work, work, work to win a position, so that one day some woman may be happy. So you see, I have my tower as well as Nan, where I'm doomed to spin my web of fancy.” “But men choose their own towers--build them for themselves.” “Don't you believe it. Some few may, but so do some few girls. I wanted to go to Oxford and to write books and to be a scholar, instead of which I publish other men's scribblings and do my best to sell 'em.” “I never thought... I mean I thought all men... But you're strong: if any man could have chosen, you would have done it. Tell me about yourself.” And he told her--his dreams, anxieties, small triumphs, and incessant round of daily duties. He was very fine and gentle, speaking with touching eagerness, as though confession were a privilege which he rarely allowed himself. Yet Jehane was not content; she knew that in love the instinct for confession is coupled with the instinct for secretiveness. When she touched him, he was not disturbed as she was; his voice did not quiver--he did not change color. She told herself that men were the masters, so that even in love they showed no distrust of themselves. But the explanation was not convincing. They were nearing Cassingland. Ambushed in trees, rising out of somnolent lowlands, the thin, tall spire of a church sunned itself. Like toys, tumbled from a sack, about which grass had grown up, cottages lay scattered throughout the meadows. As they came in sight of the triangular green, with the tidy rectory standing, high-walled, on its edge, their conversation faltered. He offered her his hand to help her out. She held back for a second, then took it with ashamed suddenness. He raised his eyes to hers with a boy's enthusiasm. “Miss Usk, it's awfully decent of you to have listened to me.” “It's you who've been decent. You make everything so easy. You seem... seem to understand.” He was puzzled. “I've done nothing but talk at unpardonable length about myself. As for making things easy, it's you--you're so rippingly sensible.”