"Well, so long!" But Caroline
did not notice; her whole mind bent on Godfrey's retreating figure as
it went firmly down the broad concrete walk of the promenade--for now
the question she'd been craving to ask all day had been answered. He
thought nothing about what happened last night. The kiss had been
nothing to him. He intended to show her that he did not recognize any
slightest claim on his attention which she might think she had gained
from it.

Then she had to cease looking after him in order to answer a stout lady
visitor who made a point of being nice to the girl at the pay-box.
"Yes--a great pity the weather was not like this for the Gala."

But all the time she was saying to herself, with the queer, dazed
feeling which comes from a sudden shock of discovery: "I'm gone on him!
I'm fair gone on him, and him going to be married!"

Even in her thoughts she usually chose her words--just as she kept
herself scrupulously "nice" underneath to match her carefully tended
hands and well-brushed hair. But now she reverted back to the
expressions of her earliest girlhood. "I only meant a bit of fun, and
I'm fair gone on him."

Oh! it was desolating--most miserable. There was nothing on earth to
be got from it but heartache. She had tried to do the best for
herself, and Fate had treated her like this--stabbed her from behind.
It was abominable that she should be punished so for a bit of fun when
other girls got off scot-free who had done all sorts of things that she
would be ashamed of doing. Life was unfair. It was horribly unfair----

An Urban District Councillor on his way home separated himself from the
stream of men with bags which emerged blackly from the railway station
and flowed over Thorhaven between half-past five and half-past six.
"Fine evening! Fine evening!" he said, bustling through the barrier.

For a moment the agony lifted; but when he was gone it started again
worse than ever--like the pain in an inflamed nerve. The waste of it!
She had thrown away her best asset for nothing. She could no longer
fall in love with the rich young man who might want to marry her one
day--as she had always more or less sub-consciously expected--because
she loved Godfrey. Instinct warned her that the best goods in her shop
window were gone without any return, and for the moment her chief
feeling was an intense anger against fate first and then against
Godfrey.

Not that she blamed him particularly for t