do her no injury. These things can always be arranged
so that no one is injured; that is all that is necessary."

"These things can never be arranged so that no one is injured," Beth
replied. "We injure ourselves, if no one else. We are bound to
deteriorate when we live deceitfully. How can you be honest and manly
and lead a double life? The false husband in whom his wife believes
must be a sneak; and for the man who rewards a good faithful wife by
deceiving her, I have no term of contempt sufficiently strong."

"I am disappointed in you," he said. "I should never have suspected
that you were so narrow and conventional."

"Are you prepared to defy public opinion?" Beth asked.

"No, that would be gross," he said. "Outwardly we must conform. Only
the _elite_ understand these things, and only the _elite_ need know of
them. You are of the _elite_ yourself; you must know, you must feel
the power, the privilege conferred by a great passion."

"Pray do not class me with the _elite_ if passion is what they
respect," Beth said. "Passion at the best--honourable passion--is but
the efflorescence of a mere animal function. The passion that has no
honourable object is a gaudy, unwholesome weed, rapid of growth, swift
and sure to decay."

"Passion is more than that, the passion of which I speak. It is a
great mental stimulant," he declared.

"Yes," said Beth, "passion is a great mental stimulant--passion
resisted."

"Georges Sand, whom I would have you follow, always declared that she
only wrote her best under the influence of a strong passion," he
assured her.

"But how do we know that she might not have written better than that
best under some holier influence?" Beth rejoined. "George Eliot's
serener spirit appeals to me more. I believe it is only those who
renounce the ruinous riot of the senses, and find their strength and
inspiration in contemplation, who reach the full fruition of their
powers. Ages have not talked for nothing of the pains of passion and
the pleasures of love. Love is a great ethical force; but passion,
which is compact of every element of doubt and deceit, is cosmic and
brutal, a tyrant if we yield to it, but if we master it, an obedient
servant willing to work. I would rather die of passion myself, as I
might of any other disease, than live to be bound by it."

Pounce, who had been pacing about the room restlessly until now, sat
down by the fire, and gazed into it for a little, discomfited. He ha