actory post-card from the shores of the
Lake of Garda, saying that her plans were uncertain and had better be
ignored. Evidently she disliked meeting Henry. Two months are surely
enough to accustom an outsider to a situation which a wife has accepted
in two days, and Margaret had again to regret her sister's lack of
self-control. In a long letter she pointed out the need of charity in
sexual matters; so little is known about them; it is hard enough for
those who are personally touched to judge; then how futile must be the
verdict of Society. "I don't say there is no standard, for that would
destroy morality; only that there can be no standard until our impulses
are classified and better understood." Helen thanked her for her kind
letter--rather a curious reply. She moved south again, and spoke of
wintering in Naples.

Mr. Wilcox was not sorry that the meeting failed. Helen left him time to
grow skin over his wound. There were still moments when it pained him.
Had he only known that Margaret was awaiting him--Margaret, so lively
and intelligent, and yet so submissive--he would have kept himself
worthier of her. Incapable of grouping the past, he confused the episode
of Jacky with another episode that had taken place in the days of his
bachelorhood. The two made one crop of wild oats, for which he was
heartily sorry, and he could not see that those oats are of a darker
stock which are rooted in another's dishonour. Unchastity and infidelity
were as confused to him as to the Middle Ages, his only moral teacher.
Ruth (poor old Ruth!) did not enter into his calculations at all, for
poor old Ruth had never found him out.

His affection for his present wife grew steadily. Her cleverness gave
him no trouble, and, indeed, he liked to see her reading poetry or
something about social questions; it distinguished her from the wives
of other men. He had only to call, and she clapped the book up and was
ready to do what he wished. Then they would argue so jollily, and once
or twice she had him in quite a tight corner, but as soon as he grew
really serious, she gave in. Man is for war, woman for the recreation
of the warrior, but he does not dislike it if she makes a show of fight.
She cannot win in a real battle, having no muscles, only nerves.
Nerves make her jump out of a moving motor-car, or refuse to be
married fashionably. The warrior may well allow her to triumph on such
occasions; they move not the imperishable plinth of thing