young and chaste. He drew a sigh, and
began.

"About books now. What have you read? Just Shakespeare and the Bible?"

"I haven't read many classics," Rachel stated. She was slightly
annoyed by his jaunty and rather unnatural manner, while his masculine
acquirements induced her to take a very modest view of her own power.

"D'you mean to tell me you've reached the age of twenty-four without
reading Gibbon?" he demanded.

"Yes, I have," she answered.

"Mon Dieu!" he exclaimed, throwing out his hands. "You must begin
to-morrow. I shall send you my copy. What I want to know is--" he looked
at her critically. "You see, the problem is, can one really talk to you?
Have you got a mind, or are you like the rest of your sex? You seem to
me absurdly young compared with men of your age."

Rachel looked at him but said nothing.

"About Gibbon," he continued. "D'you think you'll be able to appreciate
him? He's the test, of course. It's awfully difficult to tell about
women," he continued, "how much, I mean, is due to lack of training,
and how much is native incapacity. I don't see myself why you shouldn't
understand--only I suppose you've led an absurd life until now--you've
just walked in a crocodile, I suppose, with your hair down your back."

The music was again beginning. Hirst's eye wandered about the room in
search of Mrs. Ambrose. With the best will in the world he was conscious
that they were not getting on well together.

"I'd like awfully to lend you books," he said, buttoning his gloves,
and rising from his seat. "We shall meet again. I'm going to leave you
now."

He got up and left her.

Rachel looked round. She felt herself surrounded, like a child at a
party, by the faces of strangers all hostile to her, with hooked noses
and sneering, indifferent eyes. She was by a window, she pushed it open
with a jerk. She stepped out into the garden. Her eyes swam with tears
of rage.

"Damn that man!" she exclaimed, having acquired some of Helen's words.
"Damn his insolence!"

She stood in the middle of the pale square of light which the window
she had opened threw upon the grass. The forms of great black trees rose
massively in front of her. She stood still, looking at them, shivering
slightly with anger and excitement. She heard the trampling and swinging
of the dancers behind her, and the rhythmic sway of the waltz music.

"There are trees," she said aloud. Would the trees make up for St. John
Hirst? She would