ver he could, and
Joan never objected. Only oddly, at moments such as this, her mind would
suddenly push forward the terse argument:

"Do you love him, or is it just the little animal in you that likes all
he has to give?"

Joan was often greatly disturbed about what she called the beast side of
her. During her year in London, under the guidance of another girl far
older and wiser than herself, she had plunged recklessly into all sorts
of knowledge, gleaned mostly from books such as Aunt Janet and even
Uncle John had never heard of, far less read. So Joan knew that there is
a beast side to all human nature, and she was for ever pausing to probe
this or that sensation down to its root. Her books had taught her other
theories too, and very young, very impetuous by nature, Joan rushed to a
full acceptance of the facts over which older women were debating. The
sanctity of marriage, for instance, was a myth invented by man because
he wished to keep women enslaved. Free love was the only beautiful
relationship that could exist between the sexes. Frankness and free
speech between men and women was another rule Joan asserted, in
pursuance of which she had long since threshed out the complicated
question of marriage with Gilbert. It was all rather childish and silly,
yet pathetic beyond the scope of tears, if you looked into Joan's sunlit
eyes and caught the play of dimples round her mouth. Rather as if you
were to come suddenly upon a child playing with a live shell.

What Gilbert Stanning thought of it all is another matter; Joan with all
her book-learned wisdom had not fathomed his character. He was a man
about thirty-two, good-looking, indolent and selfish. He had just enough
money to be intensely comfortable, provided he spent it all on himself,
and Gilbert certainly succeeded in being comfortable. There had been a
good many women in Gilbert's life of one kind and another, but he had
never known anyone like Joan before. At times her startling mixture of
knowledge and innocence amazed him, and she had fascinated him from the
first. He was a man easily fascinated by the little feminine things in a
woman. The way Joan's hair grew in curls at the nape of her neck
fascinated him, the soft red of her mouth, the way the lashes lay like a
spread-out fan on her cheeks and the quick changing lights and colours
in those eyes themselves. With Gilbert, when he wanted a thing he
generally got it, by fair means or foul; for the moment h