Terry; so does Braithwaite. Lord Dawn felt it when he couldn't drag his wife down to him and couldn't climb up to her. And his wife must have felt it too, when she sat always by herself. Phyllis feels it when she sees that, for the moment, you have more attraction for her husband than she has. And Adair feels it as well, when he risks his good name for a little desperate comfort and is willing to clothe you, for whom he professes to care, with all the appearance of dishonor. You're no exception; it's the feeling that you are exceptional that makes you unscrupulous in your self-pity. Get that into your head, that you're not exceptional. Half the world's with you in the same box; but it smiles and doesn't own it. Have you got that?"
She nodded and tried to withdraw her hands; but he held them fast.
"And now as regards this desire to be wanted; that's perfectly right and natural. There's nobody who doesn't share it. And I understand what you say about mere friendship. It's unsatisfying and impermanent. It's like a meal snatched at a restaurant; none of the dishes or napkins or tables or chairs belong to you. They've been used by other people before you and they'll be used by other people the moment your bill is settled. What you want and what every one wants, is something more than friendship—a human relation with one person who is so much yours that your intimacies are a secret from all the world."
"Some one with whom I can be little," she whispered, "and foolish and off my guard."
He smiled. "That's it exactly. But you won't get that sort of relationship with a man who belongs already to another woman."
"One gets the pretense."
He shook his head. "Not even the pretense. There was a phrase you used about Adair; you said he'd lost his direction. That's true; he has for the moment. Presently he'll refind it and the road leads back to Phyllis. You said something else: you called him a second best. That's all he is, however you take him, whether as a husband, a father or a lover. He lacks earnestness; he has always lacked it. I've been his friend for years; his flabbiness sticks out all over him. But you're not a second best, Mrs. Lockwood. You're a top-notcher—too fine for anything but the best. You really are. You ought to set a higher value on yourself."
She had regained her composure. He showed a willingness to release her hands, but she let them rest where they were like tired birds, while she regarded him with wistful kindness.
"Too fine for anything but the best! It's a long while since I heard any one say that. Reggie used to say it in almost those very words. But then Reggie," she caught her breath at the remembered ecstasy, "Reggie used to think that the sun rose and set for me. He was different from all other men. You advise me to reserve myself for the best. How can I do that, Lord Taborley, when the best is in the past?"