’I love you with all my soul, Monica!  Sit down again, dearest; let us talk about it, and see what we can do.’

He half led, half carried, her to a couch, and there, holding her embraced, gave way to such amorous frenzy that again Monica broke from him.

‘If you love me,’ she said in tones of bitter distress, ’you will respect me as much as before I came to you.  Help me—­I am suffering so dreadfully.  Say at once that I shall go away with you, even if we travel as strangers.  If you are afraid of it becoming known I will do everything to prevent it.  I will go back and live there until Tuesday, and come away only at the last hour, so that no one will ever suspect where—­I don’t care how humbly I live when we are abroad.  I can have lodgings somewhere in the same town, or near, and you will come—­’

His hair disordered, his eyes wild, quivering throughout with excitement, he stood as if pondering possibilities.

‘Shall I be a burden to you?’ she asked in a faint voice.  ’Is the expense more than you—­’

’No, no, no!  How can you think of such a thing?  But it would be so much better if you could wait here until I—­Oh, what a wretched thing to have to seem so cowardly to you!  But the difficulties are so great, darling.  I shall be a perfect stranger in Bordeaux.  I don’t even speak the language at all well.  When I reach there I shall be met at the station by one of our people, and—­just think, how could we manage?  You know, if it were discovered that I had run away with you, it would damage my position terribly.  I can’t say what might happen.  My darling, we shall have to be very careful.  In a few weeks it might all be managed very easily.  I would write to you to some address, and as soon as ever I had made arrangements—­’

Monica broke down.  The unmanliness of his tone was so dreadful a disillusion.  She had expected something so entirely different—­ swift, virile passion, eagerness even to anticipate her desire of flight, a strength, a courage to which she could abandon herself, body and soul.  She broke down utterly, and wept with her hands upon her face.

Bevis, in sympathetic distraction, threw himself on his knees before, clutching at her waist.

‘Don’t, don’t!’ he wailed.  ’I can’t bear that!  I will do as you wish, Monica.  Tell me some place where I can write to you.  Don’t cry, darling—­don’t—­’

She went to the couch again, and rested her face against the back, sobbing.  For a time they exchanged mere incoherences.  Then passion seized upon both, and they clung together, mute, motionless.

‘To-morrow I shall leave him,’ whispered Monica, when at length their eyes met.  ’He will be away in the morning, and I can take what I need.  Tell me where I shall go to, dear—­to wait until you are ready.  No one will ever suspect that we have gone together.  He knows I am miserable with him; he will believe that I have found some way of supporting myself in London.  Where shall I live till Tuesday?’