Page:Conflict (1927).pdf/291

 tion in this new, startling experience. It seemed to him kinder to stand by, calm her fears, allay her misgivings, accustom her gently and gradually to a state of affairs not unusual in the life of many a good woman who has discovered too late the man with whom she could have been happy. Denied the closest relationship with him, she often accepts the makeshift of a rare and beautiful friendship.

Sheilah was a New-Englander and a Puritan. Another man less fine, less acute than Roger would: have been unable to carry on such a delicate relationship with such a woman even for a little while. But Roger, too, was a New-Englander and a Puritan. Moreover, he loved Sheilah. His love for her gave him an insight into her reactions that his regard for other women (as, for instance, for Cicely whom he always had so unwittingly hurt) had never awakened. He thought, felt, and suffered with Sheilah constantly, and anticipated and guarded and protected her constantly.

He knew, for instance, how subterfuge and any specific underhand act of deceit would fill her with remorse and self-reproach. Never did he ask her to meet him alone by appointment outside the apartment. Only twice did he take her out in the open green country they both loved so, in his car. For the second time she had had to deceive Laetitia, her own daughter, as to where she had been, and it