She had thrust her feet into slippers, and flung a
loose robe round her. She was ready. She looked at him as he stood
waiting, his black coat buttoned to the chin, his cap pulled down, his
boots in his hand. And the passionate almost hateful fascination
revived in her for a moment. It was not exhausted. His face was so
warm-looking, wide-eyed and full of newness, so perfect. She felt old,
old. She went to him heavily, to be kissed. He kissed her quickly. She
wished his warm, expressionless beauty did not so fatally put a spell
on her, compel her and subjugate her. It was a burden upon her, that
she resented, but could not escape. Yet when she looked at his straight
man's brows, and at his rather small, well-shaped nose, and at his
blue, indifferent eyes, she knew her passion for him was not yet
satisfied, perhaps never could be satisfied. Only now she was weary,
with an ache like nausea. She wanted him gone.

They went downstairs quickly. It seemed they made a prodigious noise.
He followed her as, wrapped in her vivid green wrap, she preceded him
with the light. She suffered badly with fear, lest her people should be
roused. He hardly cared. He did not care now who knew. And she hated
this in him. One MUST be cautious. One must preserve oneself.

She led the way to the kitchen. It was neat and tidy, as the woman had
left it. He looked up at the clock--twenty minutes past five Then he
sat down on a chair to put on his boots. She waited, watching his every
movement. She wanted it to be over, it was a great nervous strain on
her.

He stood up--she unbolted the back door, and looked out. A cold, raw
night, not yet dawn, with a piece of a moon in the vague sky. She was
glad she need not go out.

'Good-bye then,' he murmured.

'I'll come to the gate,' she said.

And again she hurried on in front, to warn him of the steps. And at the
gate, once more she stood on the step whilst he stood below her.

'Good-bye,' she whispered.

He kissed her dutifully, and turned away.

She suffered torments hearing his firm tread going so distinctly down
the road. Ah, the insensitiveness of that firm tread!

She closed the gate, and crept quickly and noiselessly back to bed.
When she was in her room, and the door closed, and all safe, she
breathed freely, and a great weight fell off her. She nestled down in
bed, in the groove his body had made, in the warmth he had left. And
excited, worn-out, yet still satisfied, she fell soon into