"I was never in love with a banker's clerk in my life. I've never even seen one except in banks and tubes and places."
"I don't care. It's the way you'll be had. It's the way you'll be had by Hambleby if you don't look out. It's the way," he said, "that's absolutely forbidden to any artist. You've got to know Hambleby outside and inside, as God Almighty knows him."
"Well?" Jinny's mind was working dangerously near certain personal matters. George himself seemed to be approaching the same borders. He plunged in an abyss of meditation and emerged.
"You can't know people, you can't possibly hope to know them, if you once allow yourself to fall in love with them."
"Can't you?" she said quietly.
"No, you can't. If God Almighty had allowed himself to fall in love with you and me, Jinny, he couldn't have made us all alive and kicking. You must be God Almighty to Hambleby or he won't kick."
"Doesn't he kick?"
"Oh, Lord, yes. You haven't gone in deep enough to stop him. I'm only warning you against a possible danger. It's always a possible danger when I'm not there to look after you."
He rose. "Anything," he said, "is possible when I'm not there."
She rose also. Their hands and their eyes met.