To tell her his secret would lead up naturally to the picture which he had just finished.
"I say, Alice," he said, "I want to talk to you." "Well," she said, "I wish you'd talk to me sitting down.

I don't know what's come over you this last day or two." He sat down.

He did not feel really intimate with her at that moment.
And their marriage seemed to him, in a way, artificial, scarcely a fact.
He did not know that it takes years to accomplish full intimacy between husband and wife.
"You know," he said, "Henry Leek isn't my real name." "Oh, isn't it ?" she said.

"What does that matter ?" She was not in the least surprised to hear that Henry Leek was not his real name.

She was a wise woman, and knew the strangeness of the world.
And she had married him simply because he was himself, because he existed in a particular manner (whose charm for her she could not have described) from hour to hour.
"So long as you haven't committed a murder or anything," she added, with her tranquil smile.
"My real name is Priam Farll," he said gruffly.