"No?" she asked, her round eyes earnestly on him.

"No."

Again he was getting out of patience with her; again he was conscious of
the strain. Her devotion and fidelity and love plagued him; she was only
humiliating both herself and him. It would have been bad enough had he
ever, by word or deed, given her cause for thus fastening herself on
him ... but there; that was the worst of that kind of life for a woman.
Women such as she, business women, in and out of offices all the time,
always, whether they realised it or not, made comradeship a cover for
something else. They accepted the unconventional status, came and
went freely, as men did, were honestly taken by men at their own
valuation--and then it turned out to be the other thing after all, and
they went and fell in love. No wonder there was gossip in shops and
squares and public houses! In a sense the gossipers were in the right of
it. Independent, yet not efficient; with some of womanhood's graces
forgone, and yet with all the woman's hunger and need; half
sophisticated, yet not wise; Oleron was tired of it all....

And it was time he told her so.

"I suppose," he said tremblingly, looking down between his knees, "I
suppose the real trouble is in the life women who earn their own living
are obliged to lead."

He could not tell in what sense she took the lame generality; she merely
replied, "I suppose so."

"It can't be helped," he continued, "but you do sacrifice a good deal."