“I think it does. Profoundly.”
“How?”
“It prevents our marrying. It forbids—all sorts of things.”
“It can’t prevent our loving.”
“I’m afraid it can’t. But, by Jove! it’s going to make our loving a fiercely abstract thing.”
“You are separated from your wife?”
“Yes, but do you know how?”
“Not exactly.”
“Why on earth—? A man ought to be labelled. You see, I’m separated from my wife. But she doesn’t and won’t divorce me. You don’t understand the fix I am in. And you don’t know what led to our separation. And, in fact, all round the problem you don’t know and I don’t see how I could possibly have told you before. I wanted to, that day in the Zoo. But I trusted to that ring of yours.”
“Poor old ring!” said Ann Veronica.