,
mocking voice said:

"Oh-h! Conceited young man!"

And spinning round he saw Phyllis in the doorway. Her light brown
hair was fluffed out on her shoulders, so that he felt a kind of
fainting-sweet sensation, and murmured inarticulately:

"Oh! I say--how jolly!"

"Lawks! It's awful! Have you come to see mother?"

Balanced between fear and daring, conscious of a scent of hay and
verbena and camomile, Bob Pillin stammered:

"Ye-es. I--I'm glad she's not in, though."

Her laugh seemed to him terribly unfeeling.

"Oh! oh! Don't be foolish. Sit down. Isn't washing one's head awful?"

Bob Pillin answered feebly:

"Of course, I haven't much experience."

Her mouth opened.

"Oh! You are--aren't you?"

And he thought desperately: 'Dare I--oughtn't I--couldn't I somehow take
her hand or put my arm round her, or something?' Instead, he sat very
rigid at his end of the sofa, while she sat lax and lissom at the other,
and one of those crises of paralysis which beset would-be lovers fixed
him to the soul.

Sometimes during this last month memories of a past existence, when
chaff and even kisses came readily to the lips, and girls were fair
game, would make him think: 'Is she really such an innocent? Doesn't she
really want me to kiss her?' Alas! such intrusions lasted but a moment
before a blast of awe and chivalry withered them, and a strange and
tragic delicacy--like nothing he had ever known--resumed its sway. And
suddenly he heard her say:

"Why do you know such awful men?"

"What? I don't know any awful men."

"Oh yes, you do; one came here yesterday; he had whiskers, and he was
awful."

"Whiskers?" His soul revolted in disclaimer. "I believe I only know one
man with whiskers--a lawyer."

"Yes--that was him; a perfectly horrid man. Mother didn't mind him, but
I thought he was a beast."

"Ventnor! Came here? How d'you mean?"

"He did; about some business of yours, too." Her face had clouded over.
Bob Pillin had of late been harassed by the still-born beginning of a
poem:

"I rode upon my way and saw
A maid who watched me from the door."

It never grew longer, and was prompted by the feeling that her face
was like an April day. The cloud which came on it now was like an April
cloud, as if a bright shower of rain must follow. Brushing aside the two
distressful lines, he said:

"Look here, Miss Larne--Phyllis--look here!"

"All right, I'm looking!"

"What does it mean--how di