man in a public place,
especially a cemetery? Would Lois Ingram? Would Laurencine? He could not
picture them so waiting. Oh, simpleton, unlearned in the world! A snob
too, no doubt! (He actually thought that Hyde Park would have been
'better' than the cemetery for their rendezvous.) And illogical! If No.
8 had been open to them, and the studio, and the club, he would have
accepted with gusto the idea of an open-air rendezvous. But since there
was no alternative to an open-air rendezvous the idea of it humiliated
and repelled him.

Further, in addition to her culpable demure innocency, Marguerite was
wearing black. Of course she was. She had no choice. Still, he hated her
mourning. Moreover, she was too modest; she did not impose herself. Some
girls wore mourning with splendid defiance. Marguerite seemed to
apologize; seemed to turn the other cheek to death.... He arrived
critical, and naturally he found matter to criticize.

Her greeting showed quite candidly the pleasure she had in the sight of
him. Her heart was in the hand she gave him; he felt its mystic
throbbings there.

"How are things?" he began. "I rather thought I should have been hearing
from you." He softened his voice to match the tenderness of her smile,
but he did it consciously.

She replied:

"I thought you'd have enough to worry about with the exam. without me."

It was not a wise speech, because it implied that he was capable of
being worried, of being disturbed in the effort of absorption necessary
for the examination. He laughed a little harshly.

"Well, you see the result!"

He had written to tell her of the disastrous incident and that failure
was a certainty; a sort of shame had made him recoil from telling her to
her face; it was easier to be casual in writing than in talking; the
letter had at any rate tempered for both of them the shock of
communication. Now, he was out of humour with her because he had played
the ass with an ass of an examiner--not because she was directly or
indirectly responsible for his doing so; simply because he had done so.
She was the woman. It was true that she in part was indirectly
responsible for the calamity, but he did not believe it, and anyhow
would never have admitted it.

"Oh! George! What a shame it was!" As usual, not a trace of reproach
from her: an absolute conviction that he was entirely blameless. "What
shall you do? You'll have to sit again."

"Sit again? Me?" he exclaimed haughtily. "I n