know
the meaning of love?"

Part 4

Capes made no answer for a time.

"My mind is full of confused stuff," he said at length. "I've been
thinking--all the afternoon. Oh, and weeks and months of thought and
feeling there are bottled up too.... I feel a mixture of beast and
uncle. I feel like a fraudulent trustee. Every rule is against me--Why
did I let you begin this? I might have told--"

"I don't see that you could help--"

"I might have helped--"

"You couldn't."

"I ought to have--all the same.

"I wonder," he said, and went off at a tangent. "You know about my
scandalous past?"

"Very little. It doesn't seem to matter. Does it?"

"I think it does. Profoundly."

"How?"

"It prevents our marrying. It forbids--all sorts of things."

"It can't prevent our loving."

"I'm afraid it can't. But, by Jove! it's going to make our loving a
fiercely abstract thing."

"You are separated from your wife?"

"Yes, but do you know how?"

"Not exactly."

"Why on earth--? A man ought to be labelled. You see, I'm separated from
my wife. But she doesn't and won't divorce me. You don't understand
the fix I am in. And you don't know what led to our separation. And, in
fact, all round the problem you don't know and I don't see how I could
possibly have told you before. I wanted to, that day in the Zoo. But I
trusted to that ring of yours."

"Poor old ring!" said Ann Veronica.

"I ought never have gone to the Zoo, I suppose. I asked you to go. But
a man is a mixed creature.... I wanted the time with you. I wanted it
badly."

"Tell me about yourself," said Ann Veronica.

"To begin with, I was--I was in the divorce court. I was--I was a
co-respondent. You understand that term?"

Ann Veronica smiled faintly. "A modern girl does understand these terms.
She reads novels--and history--and all sorts of things. Did you really
doubt if I knew?"

"No. But I don't suppose you can understand."

"I don't see why I shouldn't."

"To know things by name is one thing; to know them by seeing them and
feeling them and being them quite another. That is where life takes
advantage of youth. You don't understand."

"Perhaps I don't."

"You don't. That's the difficulty. If I told you the facts, I expect,
since you are in love with me, you'd explain the whole business as being
very fine and honorable for me--the Higher Morality, or something of
that sort.... It wasn't."

"I don't deal very much," said Ann Veronica, "i