But it was not for him, even if he had the necessary skill, which he doubted. There was the danger of being caught by friendship on the other side or by scruples, and above all there was the obligatory extreme depth of dissimulation and he was sick of it, sick of it all. He was sick even of simple dissimulation, dissimulation at one level, and he longed to be shot of it, to be able to speak openly to any man or woman he happened to like: or to dislike, for that matter.
