And then he would entreat her clemency: he would hold her hand and kneel on the wet grass, an act of devotion to which he would call her notice, and beseech her to be generous, and after a while she would weaken and say—yes, if he was very good he might be allowed one kiss. No more! But when his arms were round her he was not satisfied with one, he would take two, three, four, and she would wriggle in his arms and kick his shins and tell him that he had taken a mean advantage of her; and when he had released her she would vow that as a punishment she would not kiss him again—no, never, not once again, and then would add: "No, not for a whole week!" And he would catch her again in his arms and say: "Make it a minute and I'll agree," and with a laugh she had accepted his amendment.
There were no solemn protestations, no passion, no moments of languid tenderness. They were branches in neighbouring boughs that played merrily in the wind, caring more, perhaps, for the wind than for each other.
They talked exhaustively of the future—of the house they were going to build, the garden they would lay out. "We'll have fowls," he said, "because you'll look so pretty feeding them."
"And we'll have a lawn," she repeated, "because you'll look so hot when you've finished mowing it."
They would discuss endlessly the problem of house decoration. She was very anxious to have bright designs, "with lots of red and blue in it." And he had told her that she could do what she liked with the drawing-room as long as she allowed him a free hand with his own study.
"Which means that you'll have a nasty, plain brown paper, and you'll cover it with ugly photographs of cricket elevens, and it'll be full of horrid arm-chairs and stale tobacco."
One day he took her up to Hammerton to see his parents and his friends. They intrigued her by the difference from the type to which she was accustomed.
"It's awfully interesting," she said. "They are so different from the sort of people that we see—all jammed together in these funny little houses—all furnished just the same."
"Yes, and all doing the same things," said Roland—"going to the office at the same time, coming back at the same time, and if it hadn't been for Gerald that would have been my life. That's what I should have been. I should have done exactly the same things every day of my life except for one fortnight in the year. And it would have been worse for me than for most of them, because I've been at a decent school, because I'd seen that life needn't be like that. These people don't believe it can be different." He spoke with a savage sincerity that surprised Muriel. She had never known him so violent.
"Roland! Roland!" she expostulated. "I've never heard you so fierce about anything before. Your proposal to me was the tamest thing in the world compared with that."