she had so far kept up the appearances of things before the waiter.
But the dinner was grim enough. Now in turn she appealed to his better
nature and made extravagant statements of her plans to fool him.

He was white and vicious by this time, and his anger quivered through
his pose of brilliant wickedness.

"I will go to the station," she said. "I will go back--"

"The last train for anywhere leaves at 7.42."

"I will appeal to the police--"

"You don't know them."

"I will tell these hotel people."

"They will turn you out of doors. You're in such a thoroughly false
position now. They don't understand unconventionality, down here."

She stamped her foot. "If I wander about the streets all night--" she
said.

"You who have never been out alone after dusk? Do you know what the
streets of a charming little holiday resort are like--"

"I don't care," she said. "I can go to the clergyman here."

"He's a charming man. Unmarried. And men are really more alike than you
think. And anyhow--"

"Well?"

"How CAN you explain the last two nights to anyone now? The mischief is
done, Jessie."

"You CUR," she said, and suddenly put her hand to her breast. He thought
she meant to faint, but she stood, with the colour gone from her face.

"No," he said. "I love you."

"Love!" said she.

"Yes--love."

"There are ways yet," she said, after a pause.

"Not for you. You are too full of life and hope yet for, what is
it?--not the dark arch nor the black flowing river. Don't you think of
it. You'll only shirk it when the moment comes, and turn it all into
comedy."

She turned round abruptly from him and stood looking out across the
parade at the shining sea over which the afterglow of day fled before
the rising moon. He maintained his attitude. The blinds were still up,
for she had told the waiter not to draw them. There was silence for some
moments.

At last he spoke in as persuasive a voice as he could summon. "Take it
sensibly, Jessie. Why should we, who have so much in common, quarrel
into melodrama? I swear I love you. You are all that is bright and
desirable to me. I am stronger than you, older; man to your woman. To
find YOU too--conventional!"

She looked at him over her shoulder, and he noticed with a twinge of
delight how her little chin came out beneath the curve of her cheek.

"MAN!" she said. "Man to MY woman! Do MEN lie? Would a MAN use his five
and thirty years' experience to outwit a girl of seven