“That’s all over now; but, Babs, I did _not_ spend twelve days wondering whether you would run away with any one else. What hurt was that you’d pretended to love me when you didn’t.” “And that’s what you’ve been urging me to do for the last two years.” Silence fell between us. Then I said: “I’ve been hoping that you could love me without pretending. I forgot those twelve days the moment I set eyes on you.” “Yes. You were as much in love with me as I was with Eric. But love didn’t give you much understanding, dear. For two years you’ve been waiting for me to confess that I did something very wrong: you’d then be able to commit another Oakleighism by forgiving me. You’ve been waiting for me to say I’ve outgrown my love for Eric, so that you could tell me—Oakleigh-fashion—that you’d always known time would cure all things. Well, I _was_ wrong; and I _have_ outgrown my love. Does it help you to know that? The difficulty is, George, that I don’t want to be forgiven. I’m not a child, I’m not an unsuccessful attempt to be a man; I’m a woman.” “And being a woman . . .” Barbara laid her hand over my lips: “Shall I say it for you? ‘Being a woman, you don’t know what you _do_ want.’ It’s quite true, even though all the Oakleighs in history have said it. I know you so much better than you know me.” “And better than you know yourself?” “I know myself better than I can explain myself. Women feel so much more and express so much less than men. Words are clumsy. When a man frames a sentence, he imagines he is shewing a thought to the world; a woman feels that the thought is being imprisoned, perhaps mutilated.” . . . “Do you know why you married me?,” I asked. Before she could answer, Barbara stared long at the fire. “Yes. But I’ve never put it in words. I couldn’t now. I wasn’t in love with you, but you gave me something that I needed. . . . Women marry sometimes because they’re frightened of themselves. Sonia did. And I remember how my beloved aunts gloated over Jack Waring, as the one man who could keep me in order. Strange to say, I didn’t want to be kept in order; and I wasn’t frightened of myself. I’m only frightened of death and of waste: a wasted life, with all the love and the beauty left out of it. You gave me the feeling that you had something I needed to keep my life from being wasted.” “And do you feel that no longer?” “Have I needed you these last two years? I’ve ceased to look for happiness.” “And you’re not yet thirty!,” I groaned. Barbara glanced at her watch and stood up: “It’s time for me to go to bed. I’m afraid I’ve talked a great deal about myself. It was thinking about Bertrand that started it. The world is divided into men, women and Oakleighs.” “I believe you’ll find, as you go on, that every husband begins as a man and ends as an Oakleigh. That is one of the major tragedies of life.” For the first time in eighteen months, Barbara bent to kiss my cheek.