e given no end of a good time. And quite right too,
it was the least that could be done for us: and the most, in nine
cases out of ten: personally I had no use for munition workers in
mud-coloured overalls, but I still remember with gratitude the
nymphs who decorated my week end leaves."

Isabel shivered: the hand that he was holding had grown icy cold.

"There, you see!" said Hyde with his saddened cynicism. "You
will have it all out but you can't stand it when it comes. You
had better have left it to Val: not but what I'd rather talk to
you, but I hate to distress you, and you're not old enough yet,
my darling, to see these trivial things--yes, trivial to nine-tenths
of the world: it's only the clergy, and unmarried women, and a small
number of hyper-sensitives like Val, who attach an importance to them
that they don't deserve. But you're too young to see them in
perspective. Try to do it for my sake. Try to see me as I am."

"Well, show me then."

But what he showed her was not himself but the aspect of himself
that he wished her to see--a very different matter. "I'm too
old for you. I'm the son of a Jew, and a Houndsditch Jew at
that. But I'm rich--what's called rich in my set--and when I
marry I shan't keep my wife dependent on me. Ah! don't
misunderstand me--yours is a rich manysided nature, and you're
too intelligent to underrate the value of money. It means a wide
life and lots of interests, books, pictures, music, travel,
mixing with the men and women best worth knowing. You're
ambitious, my dear, and as my wife you can build yourself up any
social position you like. Farringay's not as big as Wharton, but
on my soul it's more perfect in its way. I've never seen such
panelling in my life, and the gardens are admittedly the most
beautiful in Dorsetshire. There are Sevres services more
precious than gold plate, and if you come to that there's gold
plate into the bargain. Can't I see you there as chatelaine,
entertaining the county! You'll wear the sapphires my mother
wore; the old man couldn't have been more happily inspired,
they're the very colour of your eyes. And there'll be no price
to pay, for since I'm a Jew and a cosmopolitan, and not a country
squire, you'll keep your personal freedom inviolate. You'll give
what you will, when you will, as you will. Any other terms are
to my mind unthinkable--a brutalizing of what ought to be the
most delicate of things. Heavens, how I hate a mi