iscent scent of Turkish tobacco on
her lips always drew her back towards him; and yet she was of her class,
shy of love, of all that is illicit because unacknowledged. She knew
very well that Neville would hardly ask her to marry him and that she
would refuse if he did; she knew less well what she would do if he asked
her to love him. When she analysed their relation she always found that
all lay on the lap of the gods.

In the loneliness of night her thoughts would fasten on him more
intently. He was youth and warmth and friendliness, words for the
silent, a hand to touch; better still he was a figment of Love itself,
with all its tenderness and crudity, its heat, all the quivers of its
body; he was soft scented as the mysterious giver of passionate gifts.
So, when Victoria lay down to try and sleep she rocked in the trough of
the waves of doubt. She could not tell into what hands she would give,
if she gave, her freedom, her independence of thought and deed, all that
security which is dear to the sheltered class from which she came. So,
far into the night she would struggle for sight, tossing from right to
left and left to right, thrusting away and then recalling the brown
face, the blue eyes and their promise.

CHAPTER XVII

THE days rolled on, and on every one, as their scroll revealed itself,
Victoria inscribed doings which never varied. The routine grew heavier
as she found that the events of a Monday were so similar to those of
another Monday that after a month she could not locate happenings. She
no longer read newspapers. There was nothing in them for her; not even
the mock tragedy of the death of an heir presumptive or the truer
grimness of a shipwreck could rouse in her an emotion. She did not care
for adventure: not because she thought that adventure was beneath her
notice, but because it could not affect her. A revolution could have
happened, but she would have served boiled cod and coffees to the
groundlings, wings of chicken to the luxurious, without a thought for
the upheaval, provided it did not flutter the pink curtains beyond which
hummed the world.

At times, for the holiday season was not over and work was rather slack,
Victoria had time to sit on her 'attendant' chair and to think awhile.
Reading nothing and seeing no one save Beauty and Mrs Smith, she was
thinking once more and thinking dangerously much. Often she would watch
Lottie, negligently serving, returning the ball of futility