Page:The woman, the man, and the monster (IA womanmanmonster00dawe).pdf/240

 “Do you mean that my knowing all will destroy that happiness?”

“Who can say? Do you know, in spite of all I think you are only half a pagan. Why, even I myself can be puritanical at times, It’s in us, in our island blood, whether we like it or not. It is that which makes us so different from the rest of Europe. Not understanding they call us hypocrites. At any rate, we two can free ourselves of that charge.”

But there was a plaintiveness in her whimsicality which did not escape him, a suggestion as of something deeper behind the sunniness of her smile. Occasionally, when she forgot his presence, he caught that look intensified, and it caused him no inconsiderable alarm. Guess- ing only what she was and had been, conjecture at times played him fantastic tricks. Though obsessed, as it were, by love of her, that obsession still had its limits—as must always be the case with a man—and at varied intervals much serious thought would not be denied. Much as he credited woman with the resources of im- agination, also he knew that her pretence was not boundless; and when he caught sudden