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your words make no more sense to me than if you were a mad woman. I think I ’ d better go and talk to Palmer. And if he says we must behave like civilized men I shall kick his teeth in. ’
    ‘ He expects you, darling, ’ said Antonia.
    ‘ Antonia, ’ I said, ‘ let me out of this bad dream. Pull yourself together. This is what is real, our marriage. ’
    She simply went on shaking her head.
    ‘ Anyway, my darling, my Antonia, what would I ever do without you? ’
    The painful concentration of her face increased and then dissolved as she gave a cry and began suddenly to weep. She looked infinitely pathetic when she was in tears. I went to her and she bowed her head slowly on to my shoulder, not raising her hands to her face. The tears fell between us.
    ‘ I knew you ’ d be good about it, ’ she said in a moment. ‘ I ’ m so relieved to have told you. I ’ ve hated lying about it. And you know, you need never do without me. ’ And she repeated, ‘ Thank you, thank you, ’ as if I had already set her free.
    I said, ‘ Well, I haven ’ t broken your neck, have I? ’
    She said, ‘ My child, my dear child. ’

 
     

    Four
     

    ‘ So you don ’ t hate me, do you, Martin? ’ said Palmer.
    I was lying down on the divan in Palmer ’ s study where his patients usually reclined. Indeed I was to all intents and purposes his patient. I was being coaxed along to accept an unpleasant truth in a civilized and rational way.
    ‘ No, I don ’ t hate you, ’ I said.
    ‘ We are civilized people, ’ said Palmer. ‘ We must try to be very lucid and very honest. We are civilized and intelligent people. ’
    ‘ Yes, ’ I said. I lay still and sipped the large cut-glass tumbler of whisky and water which Palmer had just replenished for me. He himself was not drinking. As he talked, he paced to and fro, tall and lean, with his hands behind his back, the purple dressing-gown which he wore loosely over his shirt and trousers making a gentle silky swish. He paced to and fro in front of the line of Japanese prints which decorated the far wall, and bandit faces leered from behind him. His small cropped head moved against the blurred soft blues and charcoal blacks of the prints. The air was warm and dry, agitated by a mysterious breeze from some invisible fan. I was sweating.
    ‘ Antonia and I have been very happy, ’ I said. ‘ I hope she has not misled you here. I still cannot take this in or accept it. Our marriage is an extremely solid structure. ’
    ‘ Antonia could not mislead me if she tried, ’ said Palmer. ‘ Happiness, my dear Martin, is neither here nor there. Some people, and Antonia is one, conceive of their lives as a progress. Hers has been standing still for too long. She is due to move on. ’ He glanced at me occasionally as he paced, his slightly American voice soft and slow.
    ‘ Marriage is an adventure in development, ’ I said.
    ‘ Exactly. ’
    ‘ And it is time for Antonia to take a more advanced course. ’
    Palmer smiled. ‘ You are charming to put it so! ’ he said.
    ‘ So the thing has a sort of inevitability. ’
    ‘ I admire your capacity for facing the facts, ’ he said. ‘ Yes, perhaps it has a sort of inevitability. I do not imply this in order to avoid my own responsibility or to help Antonia to shirk hers. There is little point in talking of guilt, and it was not to talk of that that I saw you this evening. You know as well as I do that any such talk would be insincere, whether in your accusations or my confessions. But we are causing hurt and damage. For instance to Antonia ’ s mother, who is fond of you. And there are others. Never mind. We do not close our eyes to this or to anything. ’
    ‘ What about me? ’ I said. ‘ Damn Antonia ’ s mother! ’
    ‘ You will not be damaged, ’ said Palmer. He paused in front of me, looking down with a tender concentration. ‘ This is a big thing, Martin, something bigger than ourselves. If it were not so, Antonia and I