Ann Veronica, page 239 by H.G. Wells
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nd I don't think she quite loved me back in the same way."
He paused for a time. Ann Veronica said nothing.
"These are the sort of things that aren't supposed to happen. They leave them out of novels--these incompatibilities. Young people ignore them until they find themselves up against them. My wife doesn't understand, doesn't understand now. She despises me, I suppose. . . . We married, and for a time we were happy. She was fine and tender. I worshipped her and subdued myself."
He left off abruptly. "Do you understand what I am talking about? It's no good if you don't."
"I think so," said Ann Veronica, and colored. "In fact, yes, I do."
"Do you think of these things--these matters--as belonging to our Higher Nature or our Lower?"
"I don't deal in Higher Things, I tell you," said Ann Veronica, "or Lower, for the matter of that. I don't classify." She hesitated. "Flesh and flowers are all alike to me."
"That's the comfort of you. Well, after a time there came a fever in my blood. Don't think it was anything better than fever--or a bit beautiful. It wasn't. Quite soon, after we were married--it was just within a year--I formed a friendship with the wife of a friend, a woman eight years older than myself. . . . It wasn't anything splendid, you know. It was just a shabby, stupid, furtive business that began between us. Like stealing. We dressed it in a little music. . . . I want you to understand clearly that I was indebted to the man in many small ways. I was mean to him. . . . It was the gratification of an immense necessity. We were two people with a craving. We felt like thieves. We WERE thieves. . . . We LIKED each other well enough. Well, my friend found us out, and would give no quarter. He divorced her. How do you like the story?"
"Go on," said Ann Veronica, a little hoarsely, "tell me all of it."
"My wife was astounded--wounded beyond measure. She thought me--filthy. All her pride raged at me. One particularly humiliating thing came out--humili