"Then what would you do? What could you do, anyway?"
And he answered, between almost closed lips: "I know what I—what we—are going to do. We're going to make him go back to Helen."
It was the first time her name had been mentioned, and it seemed to give us both a shock to hear it, as if, until then, she had been outside the question—unrealised and unthought-of. Somehow, also, it took away an atom of his calmness, and made me better able to oppose him. For, frankly, the thought of buttonholing Severn and commanding him to return to his wife appalled me; I suppose I wasn't ever meant to be either a judge or a missionary. I couldn't do it. I said: "It's no good, Terry—there are some things I won't agree to, and that's one of them. It isn't that I don't sympathize with what you feel—it's just that it seems to me so—so absurd to suppose that we can achieve anything.... Damn it all, if you or I were cad enough to run off with some woman, do you think we'd welcome a lecture from an outsider about it?"
He said quietly: "It might be the thing we needed most of all."
"You can bet Severn won't need it, anyhow."
"Very well, then, if we fail, we fail. But that's no reason against trying, is it?"
"I'm not going to try.... I'm sorry, but I mean it."
"All right then. I'll try on my own."
"Really—I'm sorry—but——"
He smiled. "I don't mind a bit," he answered. "Besides, it may be easier for me than for you. You see, I haven't got your limitations. I don't care about good taste, or what's 'done' in such matters. I just do what I feel I must do."