“Oh no, please don’t!” she cried.
“What am I not to do?”
“Don’t say it. I like you tremendously, of course, and I think you are the most splendid friend any one ever had, but I want to travel about for ever so long, just as I like, and write, and be in things, you know.”
“Then you haven’t been in things enough the last three months?”
“I should think not! It has only whetted my appetite for more. Things are so frightfully interesting. I should like to plunge right into the midst of life.”
“Is it absolutely necessary to take the plunge alone?”
“Oh, I know what you are going to say. But don’t you see that I want to be without responsibilities for a time? I have always had Maurice on my mind, but now I can hand the dear boy over with an easy conscience to Eirene, and do just as I like. I want to be able to shut myself up and write, or start off on my travels, and go on, or come back, or break my journey, just as the fancy takes me—not to have to feel that I ought to be doing anything whatever.”
“You would soon get tired of that sort of life.”
“So everybody would say, but I want to try it. But you are better than most people. You are the only man I ever met who wouldn’t have been scandalised at what I have said, and done everything to keep me back.”
“Perhaps I know better than to say all I feel. Or perhaps I am trying to allure you by a deceptive show of sympathy. Honestly, Zoe, your life shouldn’t be a dull one if I could help it—with me, I mean,” he added lamely. “And you can’t think I should try to stop your writing. I should be awfully proud of your books.”