She was examining him contemplatively, as a woman examines a possession,
something that the other women have not. Her look made him feel very
restive and intensely reserved.

"I doubt if I am the least like Jacques Sennier," he said.

"Oh, yes, you are. I know."

His rather thin and very mobile lips tightened, as if to keep back a
rush of words.

"You don't know yourself," Charmian continued, still looking at him with
those contemplative and possessive eyes. "Men don't notice what is part
of themselves."

"Do women?"

"What does it matter? I am thinking about you, about my man."

There was a long pause, which Claude filled by getting up and lighting a
cigarette. A hideous, undressed sensation possessed him, the undressed
sensation of the reserved nature that is being stared at. He said to
himself: "It is natural that she should look at me like this, speak to
me like this. It is perfectly natural." But he hated it. He even felt as
if he could not endure it much longer, and would be obliged to do
something to stop it.

"Don't sit down again," said Charmian, as he turned with the cigarette
in his mouth.

She got up with lithe ease, like one uncurling.

"Let's go and look at your room, where you're going to begin work
to-morrow."

She put her hand on his arm. And her hand was possessive as her eyes had
been.

Claude's workroom was at the back of the house on the floor above the
drawing-room. An upright piano replaced the grand piano of Mullion
House, now dedicated to the drawing-room. There was a large flat
writing-table in front of the window, where curtains of Irish frieze,
dark green in color, hung shutting out the night and the ugliness at the
back of Kensington Square. The walls were nearly covered with books. At
the bottom of the bookcases were large drawers for music. A Canterbury
held more music, and was placed beside the writing-table. The carpet was
dark green without any pattern. In the fireplace were some curious
Morris tiles, representing AEneas carrying Anchises, with Troy burning in
the background. There were two armchairs, and a deep sofa covered in
dark green. A photograph of Charmian stood on the writing-table. It
showed her in evening dress, holding her Conder fan, and looking out
with half-shut eyes. There was in it a hint of the assumed dreaminess
which very sharp-witted modern maidens think decorative in photographs,
the "I follow an ideal" expression, which makes men say, "What a
c