"Oh no. For only thinking of it--for only thinking of it. But you would think of it; I always knew you'd be like that.... Now ask me anything you like. _Any_thing you like. Only don't ask Derry. It made"--for an instant only there was the slightest tremor in her voice--"it made no difference to him." What, as she had said, was our relation? Had he "got us going"? Had he subdued all our standards to his own standardlessness? Had he withdrawn some linchpin of ordinary conduct from the wheel on which the whole world revolves? I didn't know. I don't know now. The more I think of it the less I know. I only know what I did. Her affairs were her affairs, and I have ado enough to look after my own. I took one of her cool hands in mine, bowed as low over it as if she had been a queen, and kissed it. Her other hand rested lightly for a moment on my head as I did so. "And now," she resumed in her ordinary tones, "about him." He was sitting alone in the punt, some forty yards away, gazing straight before him. He had ceased to paddle, the water had ceased to drip from his resting blade. It accentuated his isolation that for two whole days he had hardly left her side. Restlessness and impatience plainly possessed him. He was straining to be off. It would not have surprised me to see him suddenly thrust the paddle in, swirl across the lake, tie up the punt, walk straight up to me, hold out his hand, and say, "George, old man, it's no good--I've got to go this moment." I turned to Julia. "If he leaves shall you go with him?" I asked. "Leaves here? This house? To-day?" "I didn't mean that." "You mean if he buckles on his knapsack again?" "If that's the next stage." "I'm afraid to think." "Then you _do_ think he might just--go off?" She sighed a little. "I suppose it has to be faced." "And in that case would you go with him?" She started nervously. He had put in the paddle. But he only gave a couple of strokes, and withdrew it again. Her voice was low. "I would, of course. To the end of the world. But that's the whole point. He never wanted me. He doesn't want me now. He won't want me then." I saw--only too plainly. Naturally he would not want her. It was the very essence of his wandering that he should be unhampered and alone. That which she now had she had; but it seemed to me that it was all she would ever have. She had thrown, and--won? Lost? Which? That was for her to say. Had she remained content as she was she might have kept him on the original terms in perpetuity; but it looked as if in precipitating the event she had encompassed her own defeat. Her eyes were now on him as if they would never see him again. "Shall we go across to him?" I said.