'You're dying to ask me something,' he said.

'Which am I dying to ask you: _where_ you're going, or _why_ you're
going?' She gave her most vivid smile. He sat down with a sigh. People
still sigh, sometimes, even nowadays.

'I don't know where I'm going; but I'll tell you why.... I'm seeing too
much of you.'

She was silent.

'You see, Mrs Ottley, seeing a great deal of you is very entrancing,
but it's dangerous.'

'In what way?'

'Well--your society--you see one gets to feel one can't do without it,
do you see?'

'But why should you do without it?'

He looked at her. 'You mean there's no reason why we shouldn't keep on
going to plays with Bruce, dining with Bruce, being always with Bruce?'
(Bruce and Aylmer had become so intimate that they called each other by
their Christian names.) 'Don't you see, it makes one sometimes feel one
wants more and more of you--of your society I mean. One could talk
better alone.'

'But you can come and see me sometimes, can't you?'