"The way you feel. We are older than we were--everybody is older--the
world is, too. What we were brought up to consider impossible--"

"What we were brought up to consider impossible was what kept me up to
the mark out there, Nina." He made a gesture toward the East. "Now, I
come back here and learn that we've all outgrown those ideas--"

"Phil! I never meant that."

He said: "If Alixe found that she cared for Ruthven, I don't blame her.
Laws and statutes can't govern such matters. If she found she no longer
cared for me, I could not blame her. But two people, mismated, have only
one chance in this world--to live their tragedy through with dignity.
That is absolutely all life holds for them. Beyond that, outside of that
dead line--treachery to self and race and civilisation! That is my
conclusion after a year's experience in hell." He rose and began to pace
the floor, fingers worrying his moustache. "Law? Can a law, which I do
not accept, let me loose to risk it all again with another woman?"

She said slowly, her hands folded in her lap: "It is well you've come to
me at last. You've been turning round and round in that wheeled cage
until you think you've made enormous progress; and you haven't. Dear,
listen to me; what you honestly believe to be unselfish and high-minded
adherence to principle, is nothing but the circling reasoning of a hurt
mind--an intelligence still numbed from shock, a mental and physical
life forced by sheer courage into mechanical routine. . . . Wait a
moment; there is nobody else to say this to you; and if I did not love
you I would not interfere with this great mistake you are so honestly
making of your life, and which, perhaps, is the only comfort left you. I