"I think," said Julian slowly, "that you can put that idea of shame quite out of your mind. It has always struck me as a very much misapplied emotion. There is nothing to be ashamed of in anything that is true. The only thing that is shameful is pretence. You are talking to me now on a plane where pretence can have no possible existence, and therefore, if it is of any help to you, go on speaking what is in your mind. I can do nothing for you, but I am here, and I will listen to you. And I shall never repeat to any living soul those of your thoughts which you choose to speak aloud in my hearing."
He leant over the wall, gazing with absent eyes at the grey expanse of sea that his soul loved, and remained immovable.
"You're quite right," she said, "I want to speak about it. I do want to speak about it. Rather like that day when I wanted to talk about Clarence Isbister, and you let me.
"You do understand, don't you? I knew that Mr. Easter was married. He told me so himself, quite soon. And I heard about his wife, a little, you know—from other people at the College as well. At the very beginning I was only just sorry, and then I minded very much, and then, after a little while, I thought it wasn't going to matter. To him, you know."
"Tell me what you mean," said Julian gently.
"I suppose I mean that, anyway, it wouldn't have mattered much to me. I know that there are these standards of right and wrong. I was taught things—but I know quite well really that they wouldn't have weighed in the balance against happiness. I suppose that's what is meant by an unprincipled person. Somehow I thought that he was going to feel like that too. I daresay," said Miss Marchrose, simply enough, "that it is because I have never been loved by anyone (except poor Clarence, whom you can hardly count) that I thought that. Such little things seemed to me to mean a great deal. I read indications into things—you know—and all the time they must have meant nothing at all."
"I don't think that altogether," Julian said, entirely against his saner judgment.
"What do you think?" she asked with a kind of listless curiosity.
"I can only give you conjecture. I know nothing at all, and you see, men don't talk to one another, much. In this case especially, of course, I have nothing whatever to guide me but my own conjectures."
"Tell me," she said.