e to see any other reason."

"Oh? Bernard's my cousin."

"Since you will have it, Hyde, I can't see you burying yourself
in a country village out of cousinly affection. You said you'd
stay as long as you were comfortable. Well, it won't be
comfortable now! I'm not presuming to judge you. I've no idea
what your ethical or social standards are. Quite likely you
would consider yourself justified in taking away your cousin's
wife. Some modern professors and people who write about social
questions would say, wouldn't they, that she ought to be able to
divorce him: that a marriage which can't be fruitful ought not to
be a binding tie? I've never got up the subject because for me
it's settled out of hand on religious grounds, but they may not
influence you, nor perhaps would the other possible deterrent,
pity for the weak--if one can call Bernard weak. It would be an
impertinence for me to judge you by my code, when perhaps your
own is pure social expediency--which would certainly be better
served if Mrs. Clowes went to you."

"Assuming that you've correctly defined my standard--why should
I go?"

Val shrugged his shoulders. "You know well enough. Because Mrs.
Clowes is old-fashioned; her duty to Bernard is the ruling force
in her life, and you could never make her give him up. Or if you
did she wouldn't live long enough for you to grow tired of her--
it would break her heart."

"Really?" said Lawrence. "Before I grew tired of her?"

He had never been so angry in his life. To be brought to book at
all was bad enough, but what rankled worst was the nature of the
charge. Sometimes it takes a false accusation to make a man
realize the esteem in which he is held, the opinions which others
attribute to him and which perhaps, without examining them too
closely, he has allowed to pass for his own. Lawrence had
indulged in plenty of loose talk about Nietzschean ethics and the
danger of altruism and the social inexpediency of sacrificing the
strong for the weak, but when it came to his own honour not Val
himself could have held a more conservative view. He, take
advantage of a cripple? He commit a breach of hospitality? He
sneak into Wanhope as his cousin's friend to corrupt his cousin's
wife? What has been called the pickpocket form of adultery had
never been to his taste. Had Bernard been on his feet, a strong
man armed, Lawrence might, if he had fallen in love with Laura,
have gloried in carrying her o