They sat there hand in hand for what seemed to them at once a very long time and a timeless instant. They said nothing, but they were very happy. The sun set. A grey half-night came creeping in under the trees. Between the black silhouetted leaves the sky looked exceedingly pale. Irene sighed.
“I think we ought to be getting back,” she said reluctantly.
Hovenden was the first to scramble to his feet. He offered Irene his hand. She took it and raised herself lightly up, coming forward as she rose towards him. They stood for a moment very close together. Lord Hovenden suddenly took her in his arms and kissed her again and again. Irene uttered a cry. She struggled, she pushed him away.
“No, no,” she entreated, averting her face, leaning back, away from his kisses. “Please.” And when he let her go, she covered her face with her hands and began to cry. “Why did you spoil it again?” she asked through her tears. Lord Hovenden was overwhelmed with remorse. “We’d been so happy, such friends.” Irene dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief; but her voice still came sobbingly.
“I’m a brute,” said Hovenden; and he spoke with such a passion of self-condemnation that Irene couldn’t help laughing. There was something positively comic about a repentance so sudden and whole-hearted.
“No, you’re not a brute,” she said. Her sobs and her laughter were getting curiously mixed up together. “You’re a dear and I like you. So much, so much. But you mustn’t do that, I don’t know why. It spoils everything. I was a goose to cry. But somehow….” She shook her head. “I like you so much,” she repeated. “But not like that. Not now. Some day, perhaps. Not now. You won’t spoil it again? Promise.”
Lord Hovenden promised devoutly. They walked home through the grey night of the olive orchard.
That evening at dinner the conversation turned on feminism. Under pressure from Mr. Cardan, Mrs. Aldwinkle reluctantly admitted that there was a considerable difference between Maud Valerie White and Beethoven and that Angelica Kaufmann compared unfavourably with Giotto. But she protested, on the other hand, that in matters of love women were, definitely, treated unfairly.
“We claim all your freedom,” she said dramatically.
Knowing that Aunt Lilian liked her to take part in the conversation, and remembering—for she had a good memory—a phrase that her aunt used at one time to employ frequently, but which had recently faded out of the catalogue of her favourite locutions, Irene gravely brought it out. “Contraception,” she pronounced, “has rendered chastity superfluous.”