"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. I don'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 I am. I haven't taken much account of it until now. My honor has been in my scientific work and public discussion and the things I write. 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...."