"You don't. That's the difficulty. If I told you the facts, Iexpect, 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, "in the Higher Morality, or the Higher Truth, or any of those things.""Perhaps you don't. But a human being who is young and clean, as you are, is apt to ennoble--or explain away.""I've had a biological training. I'm a hard young woman.""Nice clean hardness, anyhow. I think you are hard. There's something--something ADULT about you. I'm talking to you now as though you had all the wisdom and charity in the world. I'm going to tell you things plainly. Plainly. It's best. And then you can go home and think things over before we talk again. Iwant you to be clear what you're really and truly up to, anyhow.""I don't mind knowing," said Ann Veronica.
"It's precious unromantic."
"Well, tell me."
"I married pretty young," said Capes. "I've got--I have to tell you this to make myself clear--a streak of ardent animal in my composition. I married--I married a woman whom I still think one of the most beautiful persons in the world. She is a year or so older than I am, and she is, well, of a very serene and proud and dignified temperament. If you met her you would, I am certain, think her as fine as I do. She has never done a really ignoble thing that I know of--never. I met her when we were both very young, as young as you are. I loved her and made love to her, and I don't think she quite loved me back in the same way."He paused for a time. Ann Veronica said nothing.
"These are the sort of things that aren't supposed to happen.
They leave them out of novels--these incompatibilities. Young people ignore them until they find themselves up against them.
My wife doesn't understand, doesn't understand now. She despises me, I suppose. . . . We married, and for a time we were happy.
She was fine and tender. I worshipped her and subdued myself."He left off abruptly. "Do you understand what I am talking about? It's no good if you don't.""I think so," said Ann Veronica, and colored. "In fact, yes, Ido."
"Do you think of these things--these matters--as belonging to our Higher Nature or our Lower?""I don't deal in Higher Things, I tell you," said Ann Veronica, "or Lower, for the matter of that. I don't classify." She hesitated. "Flesh and flowers are all alike to me.""That's the comfort of you. Well, after a time there came a fever in my blood. Don't think it was anything better than fever--or a bit beautiful. It wasn't. Quite soon, after we were married--it was just within a year--I formed a friendship with the wife of a friend, a woman eight years older than myself. . .
. It wasn't anything splendid, you know. It was just a shabby, stupid, furtive business that began between us. Like stealing.
We dressed it in a little music. . . . I want you to understand clearly that I was indebted to the man in many small ways. I was mean to him. . . . It was the gratification of an immense necessity. We were two people with a craving. We felt like thieves. We WERE thieves. . . . We LIKED each other well enough.
Well, my friend found us out, and would give no quarter. He divorced her. How do you like the story?""Go on," said Ann Veronica, a little hoarsely, "tell me all of it.""My wife was astounded--wounded beyond measure. She thought me--filthy. All her pride raged at me. One particularly humiliating thing came out--humiliating for me. There was a second co-respondent. I hadn't heard of him before the trial. Idon't know why that should be so acutely humiliating. There's no logic in these things. It was.""Poor you!" said Ann Veronica.
"My wife refused absolutely to have anything more to do with me.
She could hardly speak to me; she insisted relentlessly upon a separation. She had money of her own--much more than I have--and there was no need to squabble about that. She has given herself up to social work.""Well--"
"That's all. Practically all. And yet-- Wait a little, you'd better have every bit of it. One doesn't go about with these passions allayed simply because they have made wreckage and a scandal. There one is! The same stuff still! One has a craving in one's blood, a craving roused, cut off from its redeeming and guiding emotional side. A man has more freedom to do evil than a woman. Irregularly, in a quite inglorious and unromantic way, you know, I am a vicious man. That's --that's my private life.
Until the last few months. It isn't what I have been but what Iam. I haven't taken much account of it until now. My honor has been in my scientific work and public discussion and the things Iwrite. Lots of us are like that. But, you see, I'm smirched.
For the sort of love-making you think about. I've muddled all this business. I've had my time and lost my chances. I'm damaged goods. And you're as clean as fire. You come with those clear eyes of yours, as valiant as an angel. . . ."He stopped abruptly.
"Well?" she said.
"That's all."
"It's so strange to think of you--troubled by such things. Ididn't think-- I don't know what I thought. Suddenly all this makes you human. Makes you real.""But don't you see how I must stand to you? Don't you see how it bars us from being lovers-- You can't --at first. You must think it over. It's all outside the world of your experience.""I don't think it makes a rap of difference, except for one thing. I love you more. I've wanted you--always. I didn't dream, not even in my wildest dreaming, that--you might have any need of me."He made a little noise in his throat as if something had cried out within him, and for a time they were both too full for speech.
They were going up the slope into Waterloo Station.
