touch. He went on without the least idea
whether he were talking sense or nonsense, interrupted sometimes by his
own conscience, sometimes by Audrey's changes of expression.

"Bear with my egoism a moment--several moments, for I'm going to be
tediously autobiographical. Once, when I was a young man, I was offered
some journalistic work. It was at the very start; I had barely tasted
print. Remember, I was ambitious, and it meant the beginning of a
career; I was poor, and it meant a good salary. But it meant the
production of a column of 'copy' a-day, whether I was in the vein for it
or no. I wanted it badly, and--I refused it. I could _not_ be tied down.
Since then I have never bound myself to any publisher or editor. This
anecdote is not in the least interesting, but it is characteristic of my
whole nature, which is my reason for inflicting it on you. That nature
may be an unfortunate one, but I didn't invent it myself. Anyhow,
knowing it as thoroughly as I do, I've made up my mind never to do
certain things--never, for instance, to ask any woman to be my wife.
Marriage is the one impossible thing. It involves duty, or, worse still,
duties. Now, as it happens, I consider duty to be the very lowest of
moral motives. In fact--don't be shocked--it isn't moral at all. It is
to conduct what authority is to belief--that is, it has nothing whatever
to do with it. No. Goodness no more depends on duty than truth depends
on authority. Forgive me; I know you are a metaphysician and a moral
philosopher, and you'll appreciate this. You're going to make a
quotation; please don't. It's perfectly useless to tell me that
Wordsworth calls duty 'stern daughter of the voice of God.' It may be; I
don't know. I only know that if I believed it was my _duty_ to live, I'd
commit suicide to-morrow. I don't like stern daughters. But granted that
Wordsworth had the facts at his finger-ends, God's voice is freedom,
whatever its daughters may be. That's not a doctrine I'd preach to every
one; but for me, and those like me, freedom, absolute freedom, is the
condition of all sane thinking and feeling. Fancy loving any one because
it was your duty! Take a case. Supposing I married: the more I loved my
wife, the less a free agent I should be; and when I once realised that I
wasn't free, there would be an end of my love. I deplore this state of
things, but I can't alter it. So you see, when I most want to give you
love and protection, I can only offer you