all women
cheap. But He doesn't. I never felt at all like this about a man
before. Only--it must stop, after this once...."

You see, he had not kindled passion in her, even if there were any to
be kindled. Lucy, with a vehement imagination, lacked initiative. You
could touch her in a moment, if you knew how, or if you were the right
person. Now Urquhart had never touched, though he had excited, her. To
be touched you must respond to a need of hers--much more that than
have a need of your own. And to be the right person you must be
empowered, according to Lucy. Urquhart was not really empowered, but
an usurper. Of course he didn't know that. He reasoned hastily, and
superficially. He thought her to be like most women, struck by
audacity. What really struck her about him were his timeliness--he had
responded to a need of hers when he had first kissed her--and his rare
moments of tenderness. "You darling!" Oh, if James could only have
said that instead of "My darling!" Poor James, what a goose he was.

It was a very peaceful day. James and Nugent had driven out to play
golf on some first-class course or other by the sea. Lord Considine
was busy with his secretary over a paper for the British Association.
In the afternoon he promised Lucy sight of two golden orioles, and
kept his promise. She had leisure to look about her and find traces of
Urquhart in much that was original, and more that was comfortable and
intimate, in Martley Thicket. It was a long two-storeyed house of
whitewashed brick, with a green slate roof, intermixed with
reed-thatch, deep-eaved and verandahed along the whole south front.
The upper windows had green _persanes_. The house stood on the side of
a hill, was terraced, and looked over a concave of fine turf into a
valley, down whose centre ran the lake, at whose bottom was the wood;
and beyond that the moors and beech-masses of the forest. Beside the
house, and behind it, was a walled kitchen garden, white-walled, with
a thatch atop. On the other side were stables, kennels and such-like.
Everything was grown to the top of its bent; but there was nothing
very rare. "No frills," said Lord Considine, and approved of it all.
"I dare say a woman would beautify it, but it would cease to be
Jimmy's and would cease to be interesting too. She would have more
flowers and fewer shrubs. Now Jimmy knows enough about it to
understand that shrubs and trees are the real test of gardening.
Anybody can grow flowers;