‘He made me go and live with him, and now he wants to throw me over. And yet he won’t let me go to anybody else. He wants me to live hidden in the country. And then he says I persecute him, that he can’t get rid of me.’

‘Doesn’t know his own mind,’ said Gerald.

‘He hasn’t any mind, so he can’t know it,’ she said. ‘He waits for what somebody tells him to do. He never does anything he wants to do himself—because he doesn’t know what he wants. He’s a perfect baby.’

Gerald looked at Halliday for some moments, watching the soft, rather degenerate face of the young man. Its very softness was an attraction; it was a soft, warm, corrupt nature, into which one might plunge with gratification.

‘But he has no hold over you, has he?’ Gerald asked.

‘You see he MADE me go and live with him, when I didn’t want to,’ she replied. ‘He came and cried to me, tears, you never saw so many, saying HE COULDN’T bear it unless I went back to him. And he wouldn’t go away, he would have stayed for ever. He made me go back. Then every time he behaves in this fashion. And now I’m going to have a baby, he wants to give me a hundred pounds and send me into the country, so that he would never see me nor hear of me again. But I’m not going to do it, after—’

A queer look came over Gerald’s face.

‘Are you going to have a child?’ he asked incredulous. It seemed, to look at her, impossible, she was so young and so far in spirit from any child–bearing.

She looked full into his face, and her dark, inchoate eyes had now a furtive look, and a look of a knowledge of evil, dark and indomitable. A flame ran secretly to his heart.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it beastly?’

‘Don’t you want it?’ he asked.

‘I don’t,’ she replied emphatically.

‘But—’ he said, ‘how long have you known?’

‘Ten weeks,’ she said.

All the time she kept her dark, inchoate eyes full upon him. He remained silent, thinking. Then, switching off and becoming cold, he asked, in a voice full of considerate kindness:

‘Is there anything we can eat here? Is there anything you would like?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I should adore some oysters.’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’ll have oysters.’ And he beckoned to the waiter.

Halliday took no notice, until the little plate was set before her. Then suddenly he cried:

‘Pussum, you can’t eat oysters when you’re drinking brandy.’

‘What has it go to do with you?’ she asked.

‘Nothing, nothing,’ he cried. ‘But you can’t eat oysters when you’re drinking brandy.’

‘I’m not drinking brandy,’ she replied, and she sprinkled the last drops of her liqueur over his face. He gave an odd squeal. She sat looking at him, as if indifferent.