Jack smiled a little ruefully and took up his position in front of the fire-place, facing his friend.
"They won't be taken in," he agreed. "They'll hate it. I hate it. It's a lie, a chain of lies. I don't expect that I shall ever be able to invent excuses or tell myself a fairy-tale to get round it. The best I can say is that it's the only means and that the end must justify the means. I can't defend myself, Jim."
It was difficult to reason with a man who admitted every charge in advance, and Loring was puzzled to know why they were arguing at all.
"You're committing a crime against yourself—and making your family perfectly miserable," he pointed out. "I know people rob and murder, when they're in love, but why come and tell me about it?"
"I wanted you as a barometer—for my own sanity. Have I lost touch with reality?"
"I think you're quite mad. I've been through it myself; and I was just as mad. The best advice I can give you is to go away from Babs for three or six months and see how you feel. If it's as bad as ever at the end.... No, I'm damned if I take the responsibility of encouraging you; I feel as badly about it as that."
Both started guiltily as the butler came in with a tray of decanters and glasses, and Jack murmured, "Jove! It's getting late." When they were alone again, he took a second cigar and flung himself into an arm-chair.
"We might make a present of this to Eric Lane," he said grimly, "for one of his plays. I've never before been up against a thing where there was so little chance of compromise. Or, if I have, I've always said, "There's only one possible thing to do," and I've tried to do it. D'you remember Raney's cheerful prophecy my last night in Oxford? Within ten years we should all have made such fools of ourselves that we should wish we were dead. Nine years ago. Your undergraduate is a sexless creature; we none of us thought then that a mere woman could mess up our lives.... Well, I've had a run for my money."
"There's only one possible thing to do here," said Loring emphatically, holding him back as he tried to change the subject.
"You weren't such a sea-green incorruptible three years ago."