Next day, Robert went up to town to business as usual.  He was immersed in palm-oil.  By a quarter to two, Frida found herself in the fields.  But, early as she went to fulfil her tryst, Bertram was there before her.  He took her hand in his with a gentle pressure, and Frida felt a quick thrill she had never before experienced course suddenly through her.  She looked around to right and left, to see if they were observed.  Bertram noticed the instinctive movement.  “My darling,” he said in a low voice, “this is intolerable, unendurable.  It’s an insult not to be borne that you and I can’t walk together in the fields of England without being subjected thus to such a many-headed espionage.  I shall have to arrange something before long so as to see you at leisure.  I can’t be so bound by all the taboos of your country.”

She looked up at him trustfully.  “As you will, Bertram,” she answered, without a moment’s hesitation.  “I know I’m yours now.  Let it be what it may, I can do what you tell me.”

He looked at her and smiled.  He saw she was pure woman.  He had met at last with a sister soul.  There was a long, deep silence.

Frida was the first to break it with words.  “Why do you always call them taboos, Bertram?” she asked at last, sighing.

“Why, Frida, don’t you see?” he said, walking on through the deep grass.  “Because they are taboos; that’s the only reason.  Why not give them their true name?  We call them nothing else among my own people.  All taboos are the same in origin and spirit, whether savage or civilised, eastern or western.  You must see that now:  for I know you are emancipated.  They begin with belief in some fetich or bogey or other non-existent supernatural being; and they mostly go on to regard certain absolutely harmless—­nay, sometimes even praiseworthy or morally obligatory—­acts as proscribed by him and sure to be visited with his condign displeasure.  So South Sea Islanders think, if they eat some particular luscious fruit tabooed for the chiefs, they’ll be instantly struck dead by the mere power of the taboo in it; and English people think, if they go out in the country for a picnic on a tabooed day, or use certain harmless tabooed names and words, or inquire into the historical validity of certain incredible ancient documents, accounted sacred, or even dare to think certain things that no reasonable man can prevent himself from thinking, they’ll be burned for ever in eternal fire for it.  The common element is the dread of an unreal sanction.  So in Japan and West Africa the people believe the whole existence of the world and the universe is bound up with the health of their own particular king or the safety of their own particular royal family; and therefore they won’t allow their Mikado or their chief to go outside his palace, lest he should knock his royal foot against a stone, and so prevent the sun from shining and the rain from falling.