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162 A cardinal point of his doctrine was that only emotional infidelity counted, and he passionately assured Teresa that this was quite out of the range of possibility for him. She tried to believe him.

But there were so many other things besides love, in this essential sense! And Basil's interest in the sex was as wide as the world. He had an inexhaustible curiosity, which he called psychological, and which Teresa called puerile; a keen, almost romantic, sense of the drama of life; a need of all sorts of free and indefinite human relations. His theories were in favour of absolute freedom among civilised beings in a generation which was profoundly anarchic. Teresa distrusted all theories. At the same time, intellectually, she approved of Basil; but this fact, as she pointed out to him, might not prevent her from hating him, and some time doing him an injury.

"I cannot get rid of the sense of possession," she said. "I regard you as my property, and your interest in other women as stolen from me. I know it's absurd, but you can't account for feelings, or get rid of them, either."

"So I am your property," said Basil. "But you don't want to lock me up, do you? You wouldn't care a snap for me if I was interested in nothing but you. It's because I know a lot of others that I know how much nicer you are."