as yet
know that half of her was urgent for its defence.

II

When the afternoon arrived she took a cab and was driven to Saxton
Square. She mounted the stairs, knocked on the door and was admitted by
his ugly man-servant.

"Is Mr. Breton at home?" she asked.

"Yes, my lady," he answered and smiled; she disliked his smile and
before she passed into the room had a moment of wild unreasoning panic
when she wished that she were not there, when Roddy's face came to her,
kind and loving and homely.

She stepped forward into the room, heard the door close behind her and
felt rather than saw him as he came forward to greet her.

Then she heard him say--

"Oh, I'm so glad you've come. I was so afraid lest something should stop
you."

His windows, although only on the first floor, had a wide sweeping view;
a world of chimneys and towers glittering now beneath the sinking sun.

His room was simple and had the effect of cleanly emptiness; a table
arranged for tea, two rather faded arm-chairs, a dark green carpet, a
book-case, two large framed photographs on the walls, one of some street
in Bombay, the other of the Niagara Falls.

The sunshine lit the bare room and their faces and she was suddenly
comfortable and at ease.

He drew one of the easy chairs forward to the window.

"Sit down in the sun; Marks will bring the tea in a moment."

She sat back in the chair and looked out on to the shining roofs and
towers, not glancing towards him, but acutely aware of him, of all his
movements. He sat down upon the broad window-seat near her and looked at
her.

She knew that she had never been conscious, physically, of anyone
before. Roddy's clumsy hands and rather awkward body had always simply
belonged to Roddy and stayed at that; now she felt as if Francis
Breton's hand, close, as she knew, to hers, was joined to her by a
running current of attraction.

Although he was not touching her, it was as though she were chained to
him. If he moved she felt that she must move with him and every motion
that he made seemed to rouse some response in her.

She was aware, of course, as she was always aware with him, of the way
that intimacy between them had moved since their last meeting. All her
romantic evocation of life as she wanted it to be helped her to this. It
was as though she said to herself, "Here at least is my true self free
and dominant. I must make the most of it"--and yet, with that, something
seemed to warn her