“Absurd!” she might have laughed; and as an absurdity he might, with a laugh, have presented it. But quite gravely he made the suggestion, and quite gravely, after a moment’s grave thought, “I don’t think that would be necessary,” she returned.
His earnestness in this thing so vital to her matched her own, and therefore she loved him; and he yet could bring to it lightly a touch which, though light, yet was profoundly based; and therefore, newly, she loved him. She knew she talked with immense profligacy of words in her endeavour to make clear the principles this second line of her defences must maintain. “Each with work and with a career, each with an own and separate life.” She kept repeating that. “Equal in work and in responsibility, Harry, and therefore equal in place, in privilege, in freedom.”
And Harry, with a light touch but a grave air, a happy setting for a profound meaning, put it in a sentence. “Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another,” said Harry.
She loved him so!
But there ought here to be explained for her what, loving him so and he so loving her, she could not have known for herself. This plan of maintaining their establishment by contribution of share and share was maintained by Rosalie from the beginning—to the end. She never had cause to doubt that in all the earnestness of that close conversation Harry was utterly sincere. She often recalled that steady gaze with no dissentient shade across it with which his eyes received her statement of her case and knew that only truth was in that gaze. He did believe what she believed. It only was afterwards she discovered that also he believed that, both for her and him, the thing would mellow down as mellows down the year, her heady Aprils burnt in June, her burning Junes assuaging to September; that it would pass; that time—
Yes, it must be explained. It was not active in his mind, this reservation. It was passive, underlying, subconscious, as beneath vigour’s incredulity of death lies passively admission of death’s final certitude. He believed what she believed; but he believed it as are believed infinity and eternity: wherein mankind, believing, reposes upon that limitation of the human mind which cannot conceive infinity but sees ultimately an end, and can pretend eternity through myriad years but feels ultimately a termination. Harry believed what she believed but only by stabilisation of a man’s inherent articles of faith. He was of the male kind; and observe, by an incident, what inherent processes of thought the male kind has:
When they were looking over the house which ultimately they took—an all ways most desirable house in Montpelier Crescent, Knightsbridge—Rosalie had only a single objection: it was far too big.
“Miles too big,” cried Rosalie, coming up to the second floor where Harry had preceded her. “What are you doing there, Harry? Miles too big, I was saying. It really is. Of course I realise you must have a house suitable to your fame but—What are you doing, Harry?”
“Fame, yes,” breathed Harry, desperately occupied. “I’ve turned on this tap and I can’t turn it off again. Eternal fame. After me the deluge!”
She was looking around. “But, Harry, really! Look at this floor. Two more huge rooms. What can we—”