‘Well,’ he said at last. ‘It’s as your Ladyship likes. If you get the baby, Sir Clifford’s welcome to it. I shan’t have lost anything. On the contrary, I’ve had a very nice experience, very nice indeed!’—and he stretched in a half–suppressed sort of yawn. ‘If you’ve made use of me,’ he said, ‘it’s not the first time I’ve been made use of; and I don’t suppose it’s ever been as pleasant as this time; though of course one can’t feel tremendously dignified about it.’—He stretched again, curiously, his muscles quivering, and his jaw oddly set.

‘But I didn’t make use of you,’ she said, pleading.

‘At your Ladyship’s service,’ he replied.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I liked your body.’

‘Did you?’ he replied, and he laughed. ‘Well, then, we’re quits, because I liked yours.’

He looked at her with queer darkened eyes.

‘Would you like to go upstairs now?’ he asked her, in a strangled sort of voice.

‘No, not here. Not now!’ she said heavily, though if he had used any power over her, she would have gone, for she had no strength against him.

He turned his face away again, and seemed to forget her. ‘I want to touch you like you touch me,’ she said. ‘I’ve never really touched your body.’

He looked at her, and smiled again. ‘Now?’ he said. ‘No! No! Not here! At the hut. Would you mind?’

‘How do I touch you?’ he asked.

‘When you feel me.’

He looked at her, and met her heavy, anxious eyes.

‘And do you like it when I feel you?’ he asked, laughing at her still.

‘Yes, do you?’ she said.

‘Oh, me!’ Then he changed his tone. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You know without asking.’ Which was true.

She rose and picked up her hat. ‘I must go,’ she said.

‘Will you go?’ he replied politely.

She wanted him to touch her, to say something to her, but he said nothing, only waited politely.

‘Thank you for the tea,’ she said.

‘I haven’t thanked your Ladyship for doing me the honours of my tea–pot,’ he said.

She went down the path, and he stood in the doorway, faintly grinning. Flossie came running with her tail lifted. And Connie had to plod dumbly across into the wood, knowing he was standing there watching her, with that incomprehensible grin on his face.

She walked home very much downcast and annoyed. She didn’t at all like his saying he had been made use of because, in a sense, it was true. But he oughtn’t to have said it. Therefore, again, she was divided between two feelings: resentment against him, and a desire to make it up with him.

She passed a very uneasy and irritated tea–time, and at once went up to her room. But when she was there it was no good; she could neither sit nor stand. She would have to do something about it. She would have to go back to the hut; if he was not there, well and good.