Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 5.pdf/484

Rh and everything's at an end'; and she doesn't squawk and say, 'For God's sake come back to me!' She doesn't say, she 'won't 'ave no truck with me not after this.' She writes—straight. I don't believe, Melville, I half knew her until all this business came up. She comes out Before that it was, as you said, and I quite perceive—I perceived all along—a little too—statistical."

He became meditative, and his cigar glow waned and presently vanished altogether.

"You are going back?"

"By Jove! Yes."

Melville stirred slightly and then they both sat rigidly quiet for a space. Then abruptly Chatteris flung away his extinct cigar. He seemed to fling many other things away with that dim gesture. "Of course," he said, "I shall go back.

"It is not my fault," he insisted, "that this trouble, this separation, has ever arisen. I was moody, I was preoccupied, I know—things had got into my head. But if I'd been left alone

"I have been forced into this position," he summarised.

"You understand," said Melville, "that—though I think matters are undefined and distressing just now—I don't attach blame—anywhere."

"You're open-minded," said Chatteris. "That's just your way. And I can imagine how all this upset and discomfort distresses you. You're awfully good to keep so open-minded and not to consider me an utter outcast, an ill-regulated disturber of the order of the world."