Again Jolyon’s reason nodded; again his instinct shook its head. “What is it?” he thought; “there must be something wrong in me. Yet if there is, I’d rather be wrong than right.”

“After all,” said Soames with a sort of glum fierceness, “she was my wife.”

In a flash the thought went through his listener: “There it is! Ownerships! Well, we all own things. But⁠—human beings! Pah!”

“You have to look at facts,” he said drily, “or rather the want of them.”

Soames gave him another quick suspicious look.

“The want of them?” he said.

“Yes, but I am not so sure.”

“I beg your pardon,” replied Jolyon; “I’ve told you what she said. It was explicit.”