piracy, because the position is false--" Her reasoning suspended
itself a little inconclusively, for the subject was complex, and she
found herself in ignorance whether Denham had a family or not. Denham
was agreed with her as to the destructiveness of the family system, but
he did not wish to discuss the problem at that moment.

He turned to a problem which was of greater interest to him.

"I'm convinced," he said, "that there are cases in which perfect
sincerity is possible--cases where there's no relationship, though the
people live together, if you like, where each is free, where there's no
obligation upon either side."

"For a time perhaps," she agreed, a little despondently. "But
obligations always grow up. There are feelings to be considered. People
aren't simple, and though they may mean to be reasonable, they
end"--in the condition in which she found herself, she meant, but added
lamely--"in a muddle."

"Because," Denham instantly intervened, "they don't make themselves
understood at the beginning. I could undertake, at this instant," he
continued, with a reasonable intonation which did much credit to his
self-control, "to lay down terms for a friendship which should be
perfectly sincere and perfectly straightforward."

She was curious to hear them, but, besides feeling that the topic
concealed dangers better known to her than to him, she was reminded
by his tone of his curious abstract declaration upon the Embankment.
Anything that hinted at love for the moment alarmed her; it was as much
an infliction to her as the rubbing of a skinless wound.

But he went on, without waiting for her invitation.

"In the first place, such a friendship must be unemotional," he laid it
down emphatically. "At least, on both sides it must be understood that
if either chooses to fall in love, he or she does so entirely at his
own risk. Neither is under any obligation to the other. They must be
at liberty to break or to alter at any moment. They must be able to say
whatever they wish to say. All this must be understood."

"And they gain something worth having?" she asked.

"It's a risk--of course it's a risk," he replied. The word

was one that she had been using frequently in her arguments with herself
of late.

"But it's the only way--if you think friendship worth having," he
concluded.

"Perhaps under those conditions it might be," she said reflectively.

"Well," he said, "those are the terms of the friendship I w