“I don’t believe a word of it. You have a lover. If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t be such a⁠—such a little idiot.” He was conscious, before the expression in her eyes, that he had uttered something of a non-sequitur, and dropped back too abruptly into the verbal freedom of his connubial days. He turned away to the door. But he could not go out. Something within him⁠—that most deep and secret Forsyte quality, the impossibility of letting go, the impossibility of seeing the fantastic and forlorn nature of his own tenacity⁠—prevented him. He turned about again, and there stood, with his back against the door, as hers was against the wall opposite, quite unconscious of anything ridiculous in this separation by the whole width of the room.

“Do you ever think of anybody but yourself?” he said.

Irene’s lips quivered; then she answered slowly:

“Do you ever think that I found out my mistake⁠—my hopeless, terrible mistake⁠—the very first week of our marriage; that I went on trying three years⁠—you know I went on trying? Was it for myself?”