"I believe you think all the time I'm right," she said. "Would you go down if you were he?"
"No. I wouldn't."
"Why not?"
"Because he won't get anything out of them. They can't give her away any more than Nicky can. Or than you can, Dorothy."
"You mean I've done it already--to you. I had to, because of Nicky. I can't help it if you do think it was beastly of me."
"My dear child--"
He got up vehemently, as if his idea was to take her in his arms and stifle her outbreak that way. But something in her eyes, cold, unready, yet aware of him, repelled him.
He thought: "It's too soon. She's all rigid. She isn't alive yet. That's not what she wired for." He thought: "I wish people wouldn't send their children to Newnham. It retards their development by ten years."
And she thought: "No. I mustn't let him do that. For then he won't be able to go back on me when I tell him my opinions. It would be simply trapping him. Supposing--supposing--"
She did not know that that instinctive renunciation was her answer to the question. Her honour would come first.