hereby he gratified his vanity and inspired hope in
the lady that as a lover he would prove equal to her desire. It also
helped to establish the moral atmosphere in which an intrigue might
develop.

"Did you love her very much?"

"Yes, I was crazy about her. If I hadn't been, should I have rushed off
in my old yacht for a tour round the world?"

He felt the light of romance fall upon him, and this, he thought, was
how he ought to appear to her.

Yet he was sincere. He admired Evelyn, he thought he might like to be
her lover, and he regarded their present talk as a necessary subterfuge,
the habitual comedy in which we live. So, when Evelyn asked him if he
still loved Georgina, he answered that he hated her, which was only
partly true; and when she asked him if he would go back to her if she
were to invite him, he said that nothing in the world would induce him
to do so, which was wholly untrue, though he would not admit it to
himself. He knew that if Georgina were to hold up her little finger he
would leave Evelyn without a second thought, however foolish he might
know such conduct to be.

"Why did you not marry her when she was in love with you?"

"You can love a woman very well indeed without wanting to marry her;
besides, she is married. But are you sure we're going right?...Is this
the way to the picture gallery?"

"Oh, the picture gallery, I had forgotten. We have passed it a long
while."

They turned and went back, and, in the silence, Owen considered if he
had not been too abrupt. His dealings with women had always been
conducted with the same honour that characterised his dealings on the
turf, but he need not have informed her so early in their
acquaintanceship of his vow of celibacy. While he thought how he might
retrieve his slight indiscretion, she struggled in a little crisis of
soul. Owen's words, tone of voice, manner were explicit; she could not
doubt that he hoped to induce her to leave her father, and she felt that
she ought not to see him any more. She must see him, she must go out to
walk with him, and her will fluttered like a feather in space. She
remembered with a gasp that he was the only thing between herself and
Dulwich, and at the same moment he decided that he could not do better
than to suggest to her that her father was sacrificing her to his
ambitions.

"I wonder," he said, assuming a meditative air, "what will become of
you? Eventually, I mean."

"What do you think?" Her eager