“No,” said he. “Schopenhauer and his lot were idiots. Love is the apotheosis of reason. My dear,” he added, rising, “this is profitless argument. I’m getting up without your permission, but I’ll be as unobstreperous as thistledown. If you feel you can’t marry me, well, you can’t. The reasons you will find are perfectly logical—but throw away the rotten fallacy in your premise of sexlessness. You are woman all through, my dear, from your lips to your heart. Perhaps I’ve been rather like a bull at a gate—the gate of heaven. I suppose I was built like that. But if you’ll let us be friends, dear friends, I won’t worry you any more. I promise.”
She broke down. Tears came.
“I’m so sorry—so sorry. But you do understand, don’t you?”
“I don’t say I understand, my dear,” he replied very tenderly. “But I accept the phenomenon.”
He turned and looked out of the window at the quiet road. Presently a taxi-cab drew up outside.
“Here’s Godfrey,” he said.
She rose. “I’ll go down and meet him. It’s no use his climbing all these difficult stairs.”
“You’ll come again, won’t you?” And seeing a flicker of hesitation pass over her face, he added: “If only to let me show you Quong Ho.”
“Yes, I’ll come again,” she replied, “if only to show you——”
“What?”