“Who is as safe as we where none can do · Treason to us, except one of we two”

The couplet “Who is as safe as we where none can do / Treason to us, except one of we two” crystallizes Dennis’s fear that intimacy and betrayal are inseparable in his secret relationship with Miranda. Remembered after sex, it turns their private happiness into a question of trust and risk.

The remembered lines

Dennis recalls the couplet while weighing whether he and Miranda could continue their affair in stolen hours. He thinks it may be by Donne, though his recollection is tentative. Its claim that two people are safe from betrayal except by one another becomes more than a literary allusion: it names the danger already present in their intimacy.

Context and meaning

The thought follows Dennis’s recognition that Miranda wants marriage, a home, and children, while he cannot share her confidence that such a future is attainable. He knows that carrying on secretly would betray her love and trust, even as he longs to preserve the relationship. The couplet’s image of treason therefore cuts both ways: concealment might let the affair continue, but it would make their closeness itself a source of danger.

Role in the scene

Dennis imagines betrayal as a snake slipping into his mind and lying there, heavy and impossible to shift. The image makes the remembered lines feel less like detached commentary than an expression of anxiety he cannot suppress, even while Miranda is beside him. Her reassurance that everything will be all right answers his fear, but the scene leaves the couplet’s unease in place.