He knew this was untrue; but the Circean spell, working so strongly in his blood, darkened his brain and made him savage to her who had power to set him free. "What nonsense, Ivor! Why should I care for you in that way? Anything of that kind was hateful to your mother; you know that she was always against it. Even if you had spoken out, she had other views for you. She trusted me, and told me, and you know it, Ivor. How could I, under her roof, eating her bread--how could I take her son from her and spoil her happiness?" "Spoiling _my_ happiness is nothing, of course. Yet she chose her husband. A man has a right to choose his wife." "But you had not chosen me. She was not sure. She was only afraid of what might be if we were much together. You were so young, even if you had really cared----" "Really cared? If? When you knew----" "I knew nothing but her fears and objections. You said nothing----" "It was understood----" "Only by you. And so you took it for granted, till just now since you found me here? You had no right to do so. You never spoke, Ivor." "And if I had spoken? Agatha!" "I could only have asked you to forget. I knew her dislike of it. I was no match for you. I had less than nothing. My dear aunt was quite right. She knows you. Are you the sort of man to be happy on a crust? Yet she is no lover of mercenary matches." He let go the hand, till now squeezed so fiercely to his side; the touch of it sent a mortal chill through him. She could sit there, calm and cold and unmoved, and discourse of the unwisdom of penniless marriages, while he was thirsting for a word or sign responsive to the love that thrilled him, and the need of love that devoured him, and the longing for sympathy that filled him with a desolate despair. And yet it was not such love as hers that he wanted in his secret heart, but a wilder, fiercer flame, though he did not know it. Yet he knew and feared the baser enchantment working in his blood, and in his better self revolted against it. Her voice was even and sweet; all that she said was reasonable, cold, and calculated. She was so self-contained, so perfectly composed; kind and gentle, but with no hint of hidden fervour or suppressed feeling. Could nothing carry her off her feet; could she never forget herself in any sudden warmth, any gust of unconscious emotion? And all the time the glow and stir of that other woman's tempestuous, self-forgetting passion moved him; the love-thrilled voice, the impassioned gestures, the splendidly moulded figure, the transfiguring tenderness on the beautiful, though faded, face, dazzled and inebriated him, in spite of moments of repulsion and disgust.