"Oh, yes ... but later.... There are tremendous reactions after war. Settled down once more in our smiling land my ghost would be an extremely unpleasant companion. You see, Gora, you are just now in that abnormal state of mind known as inhibition. But, unfortunately, perhaps, in spite of the fact that you have proved yourself to be possessed of a violence of disposition--that I rather admire--you were not cut out to be the permanent villain. You have great qualities. And for thirty-four years of your life you have been a sane and reasonable member of society. For four of those years you have been an angel of mercy.... Oh, no. If you had killed me you would have killed yourself later. You couldn't live with Gathbroke for you couldn't live with yourself. Silly old tradition perhaps, but we are made up of traditions.... That was one reason I left Paris, gave up trying to find him.... I knew that I could have him. But I also knew that you had had some sort of recent experience with him, that you had come to Paris to find him, that possibly if left with a clear field you could win him. I knew--Oh, yes, I knew!--that he would know instantly he was mine if we met. But ... well, I too have to live with myself. It might be that he was committed to you, that if he married you, you would both be happy enough. When he did come nothing would have tempted me to accept him if I had still believed--" "Did he tell you? Tell you how close he came? Tell you that I was in love with him?" "My dear Gora, I fancy that if he were capable of that you would not be capable of loving him. I certainly should not." There was a slight movement in her throat as if she were swallowing the rest of the truth whole. She had adhered to it where she could but Gora's face must be saved. "Your name was not mentioned. I asked him no questions about his past. I am not the heroine of a novel, old style. He told me that he loved me, that he had never loved any other woman, never asked any other woman to marry him. That was enough for me. I had no place in my mind for you or any one else. Perhaps you don't know--how could you--that years ago, when he was in California, he asked me to marry him." "Calf love! If you had not been here now--" "He would have gone to California as soon as he could get away. He had made up his mind to that before he came to Paris." "What!" Gora's arms dropped to her sides and she stared at the floor. Then she laughed, "O God, what irony! I talked of you more or Jess as was natural ... and he remembered ... we had recalled the past vividly enough.... Why couldn't one of those instincts in which we are supposed to be prolific have warned me?.... Much fiction is like life! ... Any heroine I could have created would have had it ... had more sense.... I have botched the thing from beginning to end."