He paused.
"And then—when you think of his supreme illusion——"
"Has he another?"
"You know he has. If all of us could believe that when the woman we love refuses us she only does it because of her career——"
"If he did believe that——"
"Believe it? He believes now that she didn't even refuse him. He thinks he renounced her—for the sake of her career. It's quite possible he thinks she loves him; and really, considering her absurd behaviour——"
"Oh, I don't mind," she moaned, "he can believe anything he likes if it makes him happier."
"He is happy," said George tempestuously. "If I were to be born again, I'd pray to the high gods, the cruel gods, Jinny, to make me mad—like Nicky—to give me the gift of indestructible illusion. Then, perhaps, I might know what it was to live."
She had seen him once, and only once, in this mood, the night he had dined with her in Kensington Square six weeks before he married Rose.
"But you and I have been faithful to reality—true, as they say, to life. If the idiots who fling that phrase about only knew what it meant! You've been more faithful than I. You've taken such awful risks. You fling your heart down, Jinny, every time."