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Peverell and Etienne. Etienne and Peverell. I used to practise the alternatives, trying to decide which sounded better. I thought he wanted what I wanted—marriage, children, a proper home, a shared life. Is that so unreasonable? Oh God, Gabriel, I feel so stupid, so ashamed.”
    She had never before spoken so openly to him, never shown the depth of her anguish. It was almost as if she had been silently rehearsing the words, waiting for this moment of reliefwhen, at last, she was with someone she could trust and in whom she could confide. But coming from Frances, who was always so sensitive, reticent and proud, this uncontrolled pouring forth of bitterness and self-disgust appalled him. Perhaps it was the funeral, the memory of that earlier cremation, which had released the pent-up hatred and humiliation. He wasn’t sure that he could cope with it but knew that he must try. This fluency of pain demanded more than the soft pabulum of comfort: “he isn’t worth it, forget him, the pain will pass with time.” But that last was true, the pain did pass with time, whether it was the pain of betrayal or the pain of bereavement. Who knew that better than he? He thought: the tragedy of loss is not that we grieve, but that we cease to grieve, and then perhaps the dead are dead at last.
    He said gently: “The things you want—children, marriage, home, sex—are reasonable desires, some would say very proper desires. Children are our only hope of immortality. They aren’t things to be ashamed of. It is your misfortune not your shame that Etienne’s desires and yours didn’t coincide.” He paused, then said, wondering if it were wise, whether she would find the words crudely insensitive: “James is in love with you.”
    “I suppose so. Poor James. He hasn’t said so, but he doesn’t need to, does he? Do you know, I think I could have loved James if it hadn’t been for Gerard. And I don’t even like Gerard. I never did, even when I wanted him most. That’s what’s so terrible about sex, it can exist without love, without liking, even without respect. Oh, I tried to fool myself. When he was insensitive or selfish or crude I made excuses. I reminded myself how brilliant he was, how handsome, how amusing, what a wonderful lover. He was all those things. He is all those things. I told myself that it was unreasonable to apply to Gerard the petty standards one applied to others. And I loved him. When you love, you don’tjudge. And now I hate him. I didn’t know that I could hate, really hate, another person. It’s different from hating a thing, a political creed, a philosophy, a social evil. It’s so concentrated, so physical, it makes me feel ill. My hate is the last thing I think about at night and I wake up with it every morning. But it’s wrong, a sin. It has to be wrong. I feel I’m living in mortal sin and I can’t get absolution because I can’t stop the hating.”
    Dauntsey said: “I don’t think in those terms, sin, absolution. But hate is dangerous. It perverts justice.”
    “Oh justice! I’ve never expected much in the way of justice. And hate has made me so boring. I bore myself. I know I bore you, dear Gabriel, but you’re the only one I can talk to and sometimes, like tonight, I feel I have to talk or I might go mad. And you’re so wise, that’s your reputation anyway.”
    He said drily: “It’s easy to get a reputation for wisdom. It’s only necessary to live long, speak little and do less.”
    “But when you do speak you’re worth listening to. Gabriel, tell me what I must do.”
    “To get rid of him?”
    “To get rid of this pain.”
    “There are the usual expedients: drink, drugs, suicide. The first two lead to the third, it’s just a slower, more expensive, more humiliating route. I don’t advise it. Or you could murder him, but I don’t advise that either. Do it in fantasy as ingeniously as you like, but not in reality. Not unless you want to rot for ten years in prison.”
    She