Which is the way to the Reptile House?" Cassandra asked him, not from
a genuine desire to visit the reptiles, but in obedience to her new-born
feminine susceptibility, which urged her to charm and conciliate the
other sex. Denham began to give her directions, and Katharine and
William moved on together.

"I hope you've had a pleasant afternoon," William remarked.

"I like Ralph Denham," she replied.

"Ca se voit," William returned, with superficial urbanity.

Many retorts were obvious, but wishing, on the whole, for peace,
Katharine merely inquired:

"Are you coming back to tea?"

"Cassandra and I thought of having tea at a little shop in Portland
Place," he replied. "I don't know whether you and Denham would care to
join us."

"I'll ask him," she replied, turning her head to look for him. But he
and Cassandra were absorbed in the aye-aye once more.

William and Katharine watched them for a moment, and each looked
curiously at the object of the other's preference. But resting his eye
upon Cassandra, to whose elegance the dressmakers had now done justice,
William said sharply:

"If you come, I hope you won't do your best to make me ridiculous."

"If that's what you're afraid of I certainly shan't come," Katharine
replied.

They were professedly looking into the enormous central cage of monkeys,
and being thoroughly annoyed by William, she compared him to a wretched
misanthropical ape, huddled in a scrap of old shawl at the end of
a pole, darting peevish glances of suspicion and distrust at his
companions. Her tolerance was deserting her. The events of the past week
had worn it thin. She was in one of those moods, perhaps not uncommon
with either sex, when the other becomes very clearly distinguished,
and of contemptible baseness, so that the necessity of association is
degrading, and the tie, which at such moments is always extremely close,
drags like a halter round the neck. William's exacting demands and his
jealousy had pulled her down into some horrible swamp of her nature
where the primeval struggle between man and woman still rages.

"You seem to delight in hurting me," William persisted. "Why did you say
that just now about my behavior to animals?" As he spoke he rattled
his stick against the bars of the cage, which gave his words an
accompaniment peculiarly exasperating to Katharine's nerves.

"Because it's true. You never see what any one feels," she said. "You
think of no one but yourself."

"