Then presently she said: “In the New Age all lovers will have to be accustomed to meeting and parting. We women will not be tied very much by domestic needs. Unless we see fit to have children. We shall be going about our business like men; we shall have world-wide businesses--many of us--just as men will.... “It will be a world full of lovers’ meetings.” “Some day--somewhere--we two will certainly meet again.” “Even you have to force circumstances a little,” said Sir Richmond. “We shall meet,” she said, “without doing that.” “But where?” he asked unanswered.... “Meetings and partings,” she said. “Women will be used to seeing their lovers go away. Even to seeing them go away to other women who have borne them children and who have a closer claim on them.” “No one--” began Sir Richmond, startled. “But I don’t mind very much. It’s how things are. If I were a perfectly civilized woman I shouldn’t mind at all. If men and women are not to be tied to each other there must needs be such things as this.” “But you,” said Sir Richmond. “I at any rate am not like that. I cannot bear the thought that YOU--” “You need not bear it, my dear. I was just trying to imagine this world that is to be. Women I think are different from men in their jealousy. Men are jealous of the other man; women are jealous for their man--and careless about the other woman. What I love in you I am sure about. My mind was empty when it came to you and now it is full to overflowing. I shall feel you moving about in the same world with me. I’m not likely to think of anyone else for a very long time.... Later on, who knows? I may marry. I make no vows. But I think until I know certainly that you do not want me any more it will be impossible for me to marry or to have a lover. I don’t know, but that is how I believe it will be with me. And my mind feels beautifully clear now and settled. I’ve got your idea and made it my own, your idea that we matter scarcely at all, but that the work we do matters supremely. I’ll find my rope and tug it, never fear. Half way round the world perhaps some day you will feel me tugging.” “I shall feel you’re there,” he said, “whether you tug or not....” “Three miles left to Exeter,” he reported presently. She glanced back at Belinda. “It is good that we have loved, my dear,” she whispered. “Say it is good.” “The best thing in all my life,” he said, and lowered his head and voice to say: “My dearest dear.” “Heart’s desire--still--?” “Heart’s delight.... Priestess of life.... Divinity.” She smiled and nodded and suddenly Belinda, up above their lowered heads, accidentally and irrelevantly, no doubt, coughed.