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He stood up, terribly agitated. "Diana—this is good-bye, you know. I can't see you again. That won't matter to you, but to me—it's something rather sharp—something torn out of me ..." He broke off. He was trembling.

She looked up at him smiling. He looked very handsome standing there, with his yellow hair, the fine way that his head, thrust back, in its carriage and poise spoke of strength and courage and pride. Fine English. That's what he was. Dull as compared with Fine French or Italian or Spanish, but reliable in a way that no other aristocracy was. Diana liked him very much indeed.

"But, Wildherne—how foolish! Part? Why on earth? We're friends now, not lovers. We've had all this out over and over again. You know that you'll need me sometimes, just to talk to, to laugh with. Married men do need their women friends once and again. Part? What nonsense!"

"No! That's easy for you to say, but not for me. You are out of love, yes, and small trouble it has cost you, but I am as I was from the first. It must be broken. How often we've agreed about that! Haven't you told me again and again—'Wildherne, you must marry! You must marry! You must marry!'—We've repeated it, both of us, one to the other, like parrots. Well, now I'm doing it at last. And the condition is—I've told you always that it would be! I've told you ..."