Not that she was afraid of his thinking it. She had set her happiness high, in a pure serene place, safe from the visitations of his terror. She conceived that the peace of it might in time come to constitute a kind of happiness for him. That gross fear could never arise between him and her. All the same, she perceived that a finer misgiving might menace his perfect peace. He might, if he were subtle enough, imagine that she was giving him too much, and that he owed her something. His chivalry might become uneasy. She must show him how perfectly satisfied she was. He must see that the thing she had hold of was great, was immense, that it filled her life to the brim, so that there wasn't any room for anything else. How could he owe her anything when he had given her that? She must make him see it very clearly. "It wasn't only that you _helped_," she said, "to bring it out of me. It wasn't in me. When it came, it seemed to come from somewhere outside. Somebody must have put it into me. I believe such a thing is possible. And there wasn't anybody, you know, but you." "I doubt," said he, "the possibility. Anyhow, you may safely leave me out of it." "Think," she said, "think of the time when you were left out of it, when it was only me. It's inconceivable--the difference----" "Let's leave it at that. Why rub the bloom off the mystery?" "Do I rub the bloom off?" "Yes, if you make out that I had anything to do with it." "If it's mystery you want, don't you see that's the greatest mystery of all--your having had to do with it?" "But why should I, of all people? Is there any sign of Freda Farrar in anything I did before I knew her?" "Is there any sign of her in anything she did before she knew you?" He was silent. "Then," said Freda, "if it isn't you it's we. We've collaborated." If he had not been illumined by the horrid light Julia had given him he would have said that this was only Freda's way, another form of her adorable extravagance. Now he wondered. Poor Freda went on piling up her defenses. "Don't you see?" said she. "That's why I feel so sure of it. If it had been just me, I should never have been sure a minute. It might have gone any day, and I should have known that there was no more where it came from. But, if it's you, I can simply lean back on it and rest. Don't you see?" "No," he said, "I don't see." (He was saying to himself: "I'm afraid Julia was right about her. Only she doesn't know it.") "You must leave me out of it. You mustn't let yourself think that you rest on anything or anybody but yourself." It was what Julia had said, searching her with her woman's eyes. He did not look at her as he said it.