“Patching it up with Muriel, poor girl.... Has it never occurred to you that this little affair of ours can’t go on for ever?”
“You don’t want it to go on?”
“I don’t want to have any humbug about it. For God’s sake, let’s be straight. If it’s done, it’s done. Let’s end it decently.”
“I see. You want to get rid of me.”
“That’s a beastly way of putting it.”
“Is there any way that isn’t beastly? The whole thing’s beastly. I should have thought you’d have stuck to it now you’ve made it what you wanted. When I haven’t an ideal, I haven’t a single illusion, when you’ve destroyed everything you didn’t want.”
“What didn’t I want?”
“The clean, beautiful part of it. The part I wanted.”
“My part at least was real. It was cleaner and more beautiful than all that putrid stuff you wrapped it up in. You were a hypocrite, Harriott, and I wasn’t. You’re a hypocrite now if you say you weren’t happy with me.”
“I was never really happy. Never for one moment. There was always something I missed. Something you didn’t give me. Perhaps you couldn’t.”