She wanted to say so many things, and she said nothing. Only she looked up at him again, and remarked:
"I hope I didn't disturb you?"
The faint smile of mockery narrowed his eyes.
"Only combing my hair, if you don't mind. I'm sorry I hadn't a coat on, but then I had no idea who was knocking. Nobody knocks here, and the unexpected sounds ominous."
He went in front of her down the garden path to hold the gate. In his shirt, without the clumsy velveteen coat, she saw again how slender he was, thin, stooping a little. Yet, as she passed him, there was something young and bright in his fair hair, and his quick eyes. He would be a man about thirty-seven or eight.
She plodded on into the wood, knowing he was looking after her; he upset her so much, in spite of herself.
And he, as he went indoors, was thinking: "She's nice, she's real! she's nicer than she knows."
She wondered very much about him; he seemed so unlike a gamekeeper, so unlike a working-man anyhow; although he had something in common with the local people. But also something very uncommon.
"The gamekeeper, Mellors, is a curious kind of person," she said to Clifford; "he might almost be a gentleman."
"Might he?" said Clifford. "I hadn't noticed."