Mr. Grig drove her home, and the taxi was a little dark vibrating room in which they were alone together, and safe from all scrutiny. She was painfully constrained.
"Yes," said Mr. Grig, after an interminable silence. "My sister was quite right."
"What about?" Lilian asked in a child's voice.
"I'm in love. What are you going to do about it?" He turned his head impulsively towards her, gazed at her in the dim twilight of the taxi, and then kissed her. In spite of herself she yearned to give, and the yearning thrilled her.
"Please! Please!" she murmured in modest, gentle, passive protest.
Another pause.
"I shall write to you to-morrow," he said. "In the meantime, believe me, you're entirely marvellous." He was looking straight in front of him at the driver's shaggy shoulders. That was all that occurred, except the handshake.
When she let herself into the house the servant was just going upstairs to bed, after her usual sixteen-hour day.
"So you're back, miss."
"No!" thought Lilian. "It's somebody else that's come back. The girl you mean will never come back."