"It's a rotten position," he continued moodily. "But there it is.... And you're A, aren't you? You'll have to marry someone, eventually. If only you were B2 or 3--only then you wouldn't be yourself. As it is, it would be criminally immoral of me to stand in your way. The right thing, I suppose, would be for us to clear out of each other's way and give each other a chance to forget. _The right thing...._ Oh damn it all, I'm as bad as the most muddle-headed fool in the country, who doesn't care _that_ for the right thing if it fights against his individual impulses and desires.... I suppose moralists would say here's my chance to bear my witness, to stand by my own principles and show the world they're real.... They _are_ real, too; that's the mischief of it. I still am sure they matter more than anything else; but just now they bore me. I suppose this is what a moral and law-abiding citizen feels when he falls in love with someone else's wife.... What are you laughing at now?" "You," said Kitty. "This is the funniest conversation.... Of course it's a funny position--it's straight out of a comic opera. What a pity Gilbert and Sullivan didn't think of it; they'd have done it beautifully.... By the way, I don't think I shall be marrying anyone anyhow, so you needn't worry about that. I've broken off my last engagement--at least I've done my best to; it became a bore. I don't really like the idea of matrimony, you know; it would be too much of a tie and a settling down. Yes, all right, I know my duty to my country, but my duty to myself comes first.... So there's no harm, from my point of view, in our going on seeing each other and taking each other out and having as good a time as we can in the circumstances. Shall we try that way, and see if it works?" "Oh, we'll try," he said, and took her again in his arms. "It's all we can get, so we'll take it ... my dear." "I think it's a good deal," said Kitty. "It will be fun.... You know, I'm frightfully conceited at your liking me--I can't get used to it yet; you're so important and superior. It isn't every day that a Minister of a Department falls in love with one of his clerks. It isn't really done, you know, not by the best Ministers." "Nor by the best clerks," he returned. "We must face the fact that we are not the best people." "And here's my flat. Will you come in and have something? There's only my cousin here, and she's never surprised; her own life is too odd." "I think it would be inadvisable," said the Minister discreetly. "'We don't want to coddle our reputations, but we may as well keep an eye on them.'" On that note of compromise they parted. CHAPTER VII THE BREAKING POINT 1 It was six months later: in fact, April. It was a Saturday afternoon, and many people were going home from work, including Kitty Grammont and Ivy Delmer, who were again in the Bakerloo tube, on their way to Marylebone for Little Chantreys.