hostile
and contemptuous tone.

"No," he said, "why should it?"

"Because I've noticed that, when people are unusually horrid, it
always means that something horrid's happened to them."

"Really?"

"Papa, for instance, is only horrid to us because Mummy--my
stepmother, you know--was horrid to him."

"What did Mummy do to him?"

"She ran away from him. It's always that way. People aren't horrid on
purpose. At least I'm sure _you_ wouldn't be."

"_Was_ I horrid?"

"Well--for the last half-hour----"

"You see, I find you a little exasperating at times."

"Not always?"

"No. Not by any means always."

"Can I tell when I am? Or when I'm going to be?"

He laughed (not at all abominably). "No. I don't think you can. That's
rather what I resent in you."

"I wish I could tell. Then perhaps I might avoid it. You might just
give me warning when you think I'm going to be it."

"I did give you warning."

"When?"

"When it began."

"There you are. I don't know when it did begin. What were we talking
about?"

"I wasn't talking about anything. You were talking about the moon."

"It was the moon that did it."

"I suppose it was the moon."

"I see. I bored you. How awful."

"I didn't say you bored me. You never have bored me. You couldn't bore
me."

"No--I just irritate you and drive you mad."

"You just irritate me and drive me mad."

The words were brutal but the voice caressed her. He took her by the
arm and steered her amicably round a hidden boulder.

"Do you know many women?" she asked.

The question was startling by reason of its context. The better to
consider it Rowcliffe withdrew his protecting arm.

"No," he said, "not very many."

"But those you do know you get on with? You get on all right with
Mary?"

"Yes. I get on all right with 'Mary.'"

"You'd be horrid if you didn't. Mary's a dear."

"Well--I know where I am with _her_."

"And you get on all right--really--with Papa, as long as I'm not
there."

"As long as you're not there, yes."

"So that," she pursued, "_I'm_ the horrid thing that's happened to
you? It looks like it."

"It feels like it. Let's say you're the horrid thing that's happened
to me, and leave it at that."

They left it.

Rowcliffe had a sort of impression that he had said all that he had
had to say.

XXXII

The Vicar had called Gwenda into his study one day.

"What's this I hear," he said, "of you and young Rowcliffe scampering
about a