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214
The Strange Attraction

“Of course I’ve thought about it.”

“It’s stopped raining.” He led the way back to the fire and respread a dry rug on the ground near.

“What’s the trouble, Valerie? We have to understand each other before we go any further, and I cannot see at all why you cannot go through the marriage ceremony with me. I know as well as you do that it is properly only a matter for statisticians. But you and I are too conspicuous to carry on any love affair without being found out.”

“Well, what on earth can they do to us if we are found out? I would have to leave the News, of course. But you said, didn’t you, that you wanted me to live with you?”

“As my wife, yes indeed.”

“You mean ———”

“I mean, my dear, that I’m not going to be happy about having you come there often in any other way. I don’t wish to be selfish in this business, but have you thought of me at all? Have you thought what it would look like if with my reputation I allowed you to come and live with me, or allowed you to become openly compromised with me? Of course I forgot it all myself last Saturday. I shall forget it again if you make me. But I do remember, however mad it may make you to hear it, that your father was the first man to call on me and to ask me to dine with him when I came up disgraced from Christchurch, and he is my lawyer. He might prefer a love affair to marriage if we could keep it quiet. But we couldn’t keep it quiet. I know the conventions of the world, my dear. It’s being found out that matters. But why are you so serious about the blooming ceremony? You are being conventional about it, not I. Why can’t we go through it and then ignore it and live by our own ceremony. That is the intelligent way to take it, child.”