very young, with expressions which made her wholly beautiful at
times. . . . "Virginal" was the word he was trying to find. . . . He
wondered how to rid himself of her without a scene.

"If you'll let go my arm, I'll open the door," he said with stiff
patience.

She walked into the small inner hall and looked round her with
unaffected interest.

"I've never been in a man's rooms before," she remarked and Eric knew
that she was speaking the truth. An extraordinary sense of power came to
him, rushing to his head. The tired eyes and wistful mouth, the haggard
cheeks, the cloud of fine hair, the white arms and slender hands fed his
hungry love of beauty. And he had attracted her until she lay at his
mercy. . . .

"I want to see everything, Eric," she said gently.

He hardly heard the words; but her tone was confiding, and she slipped
her hand into his. A latent sense of the dramatic came to his rescue.

"You seem to have put yourself pretty completely into my power," he
observed, closing the front door behind them.

"I know you so much better than you know me," she answered.

"I don't quite follow."

She laughed gently to herself, then put her arms round his neck and
kissed him.

"No. . . . And you won't for years . . . not till I've educated you. . . .
Am I right in thinking that you've forgotten all about my soda-water?"

5

Eric led her into the dining-room and gave her a tumbler of soda-water
with a hand that trembled.

She had taken him by surprise as much as if she had struck him in the
face. Incuriosity and fastidiousness, partly timid, partly romantic, had
conspired to let him reach the age of two-and-thirty without ever
kissing or being kissed. The act, now that he had experienced it, was
nothing. A warm body, yielding in self-surrender, had pressed against
him for a moment; two hands had impelled his head forward; he had been
blinded for an instant by a scented billow of hair; then his cheeks had
been touched as though a leaf had blown against them. That was the
temperate analysis of kissing. . . .

"It's a nice room, Eric," she murmured, glancing slowly round over the
top of her tumbler at the panelled walls and shining oak table. "And I
like your invisible lighting. It's restful, and I hate a glare. What
other rooms have you?"

"Kitchen next door," he answered with intentional abruptness; "then the
servants' room--you won't make a noise, will you? or you'll wake them
up. Bathroom, spare ro